My Superstar
by TheChanger
Summary: Put all the characters of Soul Eater into a world where ghost stories are real, the threat of demonic forces looms over your head every day, add a romance novel, and what do you get? Well, what are you waiting for? You'll have to read to find out!
1. Prelude Part 1: Maka

**DISCLAIMER:  
I DO NOT own Soul Eater! It is a kickass storyline that is owned only by Atsushi Okubo, Square Enix, and Bones. The title, by the way, is a song by Skye Sweetnam that fits this story and the MakaxSoul pairing almost perfectly. So I don't own the title either. I take absolutely NO credit whatsoever! However…**

**_ATTENTION: WARNING! VERY IMPORTANT! (This is Required; everything else is optional)_  
Before you even think about reading on, I want to make it perfectly clear the first time so that I don't end up with flames, angry readers, or ignorant readers or something. The characters are being put in a situation and world that is almost entirely different than the one they were born in, so they will inevitably stray from their personalities, sometimes a little, other times a lot. Some of the elements from the original story will remain the same, but most of them will be tweaked, twisted, and changed around. For example, in the original story the age range of the main characters was 12-16, but here it will be 14-19. BTW, I'm going to put them in a school similar to American schools because I know virtually nothing about Japanese high schools other than what I've learned from anime and manga, and that isn't much, so if nothing else, I will try to combine the two somehow (suggestions are welcome and some info would be awesome). Also, for those weak of stomach, underage, or find profanity intolerable, I suggest you stop reading now, because I'm not going to hold anything back. There WILL be full-on uncensored cursing, gore, and there is a strong possibility of explicit sexual content (could be rape, could be just sex, who knows, my stories usually write themselves). Everyone else, just kick back and enjoy! Story Rating may change depending on new chapter content. Reviews are strongly encouraged, suggestions are always welcome, critique is just as appreciated as compliments, flames will not be tolerated, and if you notice any errors at all (grammatical, sentences, wording, spelling, storyline, or otherwise), please don't be afraid to say something (I don't bite, I swear on my addiction to the scent and flavor of vanilla).**

**Here's the deal: Basically this story exists just to fill my satisfaction. I got the idea from a youtube video of soul eater which was MakaxSoul to the song "Love Story" by Tayler Swift, which is how I discovered this awesome anime/manga (both are awesome, which is rare). I originally thought it was a love story where Soul was a Shinigami or something who falls for Maka who is a simple high school girl with a life that's nothing but plain, but not like some chick flick for pansy cheerleaders or a slapstick movie for potheads. It gave me the idea of a dramatic action-filled supernatural romance, though at the time I was only aware of Soul and Maka. However, now that I've become acquainted with the other characters, I feel it's only fair to include them as well, and to put you at ease, this will be a strictly cannon character story. No made-up people from out of nowhere like I usually do, except for a few minor faceless/nameless characters that you'll probably never see more than once or twice (just for the record, btw, Chrona is going to be a girl). I'm not really sure exactly how this story will turn out, although I think its going to follow a dream or two of mine. I don't even expect it to last for more or less than 20 chapters, but we'll see as I try my damned hardest to make this the best fuckin' romance, drama, paranormal, action story you ever read.**

**Well, hopefully that should serve as a more decent summery. Obviously the main pairing is Soul and Maka, but there's also Black Star and Tsubaki and one other surprise, just don't get mad at me. I saw some pictures of it and I thought this rather interesting pairing was really cute, so I'm using it. There might be more pairings, but I don't know yet. Anyway, here it goes!**

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**Chapter 0.5-A  
_Prelude Part 1 (Maka POV)_**

BAM! Right into the lockers. God, locks hurt, especially if they hit you in the back.

I cringed as my spinal chord sang with pain, but the only protest I uttered was a single grunt. Immediately after that, I sucked in air to hold my breath and keep the cries to a minimum. Somehow, I managed to remain standing at the same time. Even though it was true, I did _not_ want to look like a weakling in front of them.

"Where are your little imaginary friends, now?" The boy's gray eyes flashed with something like amusement as he said it. "Shouldn't they be coming to your rescue or something? Oh, wait! Haha, silly me! Their not real anyway! Bad luck, huh?" The circle of people around us who were his friends and minions chuckled spitefully at his comment.

I didn't answer him, even when his hand suddenly shot out and violently struck the locker so close to my head that I almost jumped out of my skin. I had no doubt that he was going to hit me again, but still I glared at him defiantly, my gaze flickering to each adversary, checking to see who would make the next move so that I could steel myself for it.

"Hey, nutcase!" One of the boys behind us bellowed with a tone of frustration. "The guy asked you a question! I think you'd better answer or we might have to-!"

"Nah, let her stay silent," the gray-eyed boy sneered maliciously, "I wonder what else we can do to her before she'll cry and scream?"

His eyes flashed again, signaling to me that another attack was coming, so I tensed and waited. This wasn't the first time I had encountered these jocks, nor was it the first time that they had wanted to 'put me in my place', or so they called it. I was usually able to avoid them or dodge their battering, but they liked to catch me off guard, which was successful 5 times out of 10. When they did, they were too strong for me to fight off, so I had no choice but to take it. To make me shed tears or cry for help was their goal, and after about the third or fourteenth beating, I discovered that if I didn't want to give them what they wanted, it was easier not to struggle. I just hoped I wouldn't have to see a doctor again. To my disgust, if he had learned that he would need a new approach to catch me off guard, he did something that was totally unexpected.

"You know, freak..." He murmured as he leaned in close to smell my long hair, "You smell kind of nice..." one hand reaching out to stroke my pale skin from cheek to collar bone, "...And your skin is so soft... I wonder..." Something cold grazed the flesh of my neck, followed by a tiny pain with a sharp sting, and I realized that he was holding a blade to my throat. "...What would happen if I-?"

"What the _hell,_ Marcus?" I cut him off, a very bold move on my part, but I had to distract them and get away somehow before this ended badly, which it undoubtedly would if I continued to be so submissive. "A blade? Gimme a break! There is _no way_ anyone like you would be that stupid, not to mention this into a girl as undesirable as me." I happened to glimpse what appeared to me as a figure a good distance down the hallway. If that was help on the way –and I decided to play it off as though it was for my own peace of mind– I needed to keep my attackers on their toes. "You're the quarterback of Shibusen's football team, you've got a hot cheerleader girlfriend, you've been nominated for Homecoming King, just about everyone in school knows who you are, and you're actually willing to throw all that away? Just how much of your time do you really think I'm worth, anyway? No, seriously-!"

It was his turn to cut me off now, but instead of using words, Marcus decided he would act out his frustration by taking a tight hold of my throat and lifting me off the ground. It was actually no surprise to me, but I still spluttered and gasped in his cruel grip. By the rather shocked and pissed off glint in his eyes, I knew that I had been a little _too_ bold. But now that he had me totally focused on trying to breathe, I did not expect him to smash my body into the lockers so hard that it felt like something might have fractured. Hell, he was probably putting a dent in the metal with me. He did this at least 6 more times before help finally arrived in the form of a little blue-haired monster.

"HYAHAHAAAAAA!" Was the sound he made just before his giant sneakers collided with the side of Marcus' face, delivering a devastating blow that would have knocked any athletically unfit person out cold instantaneously, which was probably the only thing that saved the jock from utter disgrace. One would never predict such power to come from a boy so small, nor such energy to annoy the people around him. "YAHOOOOO, look out world! The _great_ Black*Star is in the hizzouse! Yes, I know I'm _big_! I just take up the whole school, don't I? _Ha, ha, ha, HAAAAA_! God is a boundary, and I will surpass it! You know it! I know it! God knows it! Huzzah, everybody ROCK ON!"

Once the brute had been struck, he only held onto me for what seemed like an eternal 1 second, no longer, before the sheer force of Black*Star's merciless blow sent him flying across the hallway and almost out a window at the other end. I didn't go nearly as far. By the time I was able to breathe again –after much hacking and wheezing and senseless shouting from the Black Demon– I found that I had only made it about ten feet from the original locker that Marcus had shoved me into.

Still trying to catch my breath and wincing with every throb of my injuries, I wiped the tears of pain from my eyes and looked up to watch Black*Star frighten and annoy the rest of Marcus' posse away with words of shocking hubris and egotism, every one of which made no sense at all no matter how they were phrased. But as much as I disliked and sometimes detested his presence (especially when he opened his mouth, which he did constantly), I had to admit that in times like this one, I found myself surprisingly grateful for it.

"HAH! Oh yeah! That's right! Don't mess with the underling of someone bigger than you, douche bags!" Black*Star bragged as soon as the jocks were finally gone, the energy of his over exaggerated enthusiasm seemingly taking over the entire hall. I almost felt suffocated by it. There was only so much of the Great Black Demon as even the principle could take, and there was _way_ more than plenty to go around.

I scowled at being called his underling, but I knew all too well what a waste of time it was to argue with him about it. So I just sighed and decided to let it slide, but I couldn't hold back my annoyance. "Thanks, fuck tard."

Totally oblivious to the fact that I'd just insulted him, he turned to look at me with a huge proud grin of such epic proportions that it could make small children run away screaming. "No trouble at all, little one! It's all smooth sailing!"

"...Right..." I found no other suitable answers to give him. In fact, words themselves were practically irrelevant compared with the blinding radiance of his hideously self-absorbed nature, to which they could build monuments bigger than the white house, name countries after, dedicate entire cults to, and right whole bibles with 100,000+ pages. In fact, the more time I spent around the idiot, the more I found it increasingly possible that the idea of Gods probably came from people like Black*Star. Sometimes I really wished I could complain to his face, but it would all go in one ear and out the other.

He did seem to catch my frustration toward him, but he simply interpreted it in the usual way. "What? Jealous that you're not as big as me? Don't worry, you're not the only one! I'm just bigger than most!"

"The only thing I'm jealous of you for is being as intuitively perceptive as a dead door nail." I retorted as I spit blood from my mouth and finally worked up the courage to try and stand up.

Somehow, though he may have been one of the dumbest people I knew when it came to intellect, he still caught the hidden message behind my words. "Were they picking on you for that, _again?_ Why don't you just ignore the spirits or ghosts or... whatever the hell they are?"

I snorted at that suggestion. "You have no idea how impossible that is." I'd tried it a several times before, so I was 150% sure. It really was impossible when invisible entities left and right are trying to gain your attention in some form or another, especially if they were trying to cause you harm.

"Well, tell them to go away then." You didn't have to be a genius to hear the disbelief in his tone, which he tried to hide with a half-assed effort. Like many other people in school, he simply thought that I was either crazy, hallucinating all the time, or a druggy. I had yet to hear his personal theory and I didn't care to know, but he was one of the few who actually tried to be nice about it. That was one good thing about the Black Demon.

However, I wasn't going to bother trying to explain it to him. He could never understand what I went through every day, or night for that matter. "God, how I wish it was that easy..." No matter what I did or where I went, I couldn't get rid of them, and I was pretty sure I'd tried everything I could think of. Always I found myself surrounded by them, every second of every hour. Even now, though I couldn't see them at the moment, I could feel that they were there, some of them hurting, some of them oblivious, some of them angry, the list went on. It was a lot to constantly live with. Sometimes it even made me feel sick.

"Hey, Maka..." Black*Star asked as he watched me attempt to rise to my feet with little success. My ears could have been deceiving me, or it could be some mischievous entity messing with my head again, but it almost sounded like he was concerned. "You, uh... need help or anything?"

It was kind of humiliating to struggle just to stand in front of someone who pretty much had no enemies to speak of, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. I was aching all over from rolling with the punches. My back was killing me, my jaw was sore, I had a terrible headache, and I was pretty sure that my neck had a nice red hand mark on it, not to mention a neat little slice from Marcus' knife which was probably bleeding. Thankfully it was shallow, so although it stung like hell, it was nothing horrible. I was a little more concerned about my windpipe to be honest. "...No..." I replied in a strained voice, trying not to sound or look as though I were in pain. I had a feeling I wasn't doing a very good job of it. "...I'm good."

Black*Star may have been a frustratingly arrogant asshole, but he was not insensitive. If nothing else, he at least noticed that I was not having as good a time as he was, because when I failed to make it to my feet, I sensed his immature carefree attitude quickly shift to a more somber mood as he approached me and thrust a hand in my direction. "Do you want to go see the nurse?"

"Dammit..." I cursed, realizing that although I would rather hang out with this Black Demon all day nonstop than pay the nurse another visit, mostly out of fear that I might get sent to the hospital again –something that I seriously did _not_ want to become a frequent routine– my condition was too serious to ignore. "I think I'm gonna have to." There wasn't much choice at this point.

Sighing again, I took his hand and reluctantly let him sling my arm over his shoulder. I hated being catered to like I couldn't take care of myself, but regardless, I allowed myself to lean against him and be supported by his body, which despite being so small was incredibly strong, and it showed. He waited until he felt me relax before gently lifting me from the cold tile floor, and I felt and saw rock hard muscles rippling beneath me as he worked not to cause me too much pain while helping me to reach my destination. At least he had finally gotten the message that I did _not_ want to be carried like some hapless princess unless I was either unable to sit up by myself or out cold.

What was even more humiliating was that as the bell rang to signal the end of break, the whole student body began to gather and accumulate within their designated third period classrooms, and I had to walk passed most of them like this to get to where I needed to be. Don't get me wrong, its not that I didn't trust or want Black*Star to help me –or to protect me by driving away anyone who might ask questions or make fun of me with his Black*Star-ness– I just hated letting anyone see me while I was this weak, and I do mean _anyone_, especially a certain BFF of mine. It wasn't long before that certain someone finally tracked us down.

"Yuuki-chan!" Her voice and the sound of running heels reached us from all the way across the hall before her face did, and once she was fully in our visual range, everything about her spoke of distress. "Yuuki-chan, are you okay? My God, you look horrible! What happened?"

"Marcus happened," growled Black*Star angrily before I could say anything, "_Again._ Next time I see that mother fucker, I'm gonna pound his ass into the ground so hard that he'll never want to even glance at Maka again."

I huffed heatedly and gave the Black Demon my personal evil eye, not that he even noticed. There was nothing I could do or say to him that would even come close to a reprimand in his mind, so all I could do was put it behind me. I turned to my friend and gave her my best 'it's nothing, I'm fine,' smile. "I'm okay, Hana-chan. It's nothing to worry about. Black*Star's taking me to see Nurse Nygus, so he'll be late for biology and I'll be absent. Could you let Mr. Stein know for us?"

Black*Star wasted no time adding his own words and piling them right on top of mine like they were more important. "Don't sweat it, Tsubaki, my delicate flower of love! If I'm there to take care of her, she'll be just fine, trust me!" I had a strong feeling that he just liked hearing the sound of his voice, and probably getting the last word in, almost as much as he loved being right or being the center of worship.

_I really hate you sometimes..._ I thought irritably. It took some effort to keep from glaring at him. For whatever reason, his words seemed to work Tsubaki like a charm. I would never understand just what she saw in him, but if it worked in situations like this, I wasn't complaining. "He's right, you know; you worry too much! I'll be fine with him. You just get to class, ok?"

It was hard to escape that dark violet whirlpool of worry that was Tsubaki's gaze. Though she continued to appear anxious, she breathed a sigh of relief and smiled as though trying to trust us and go along with what we were telling her. Even so, I could feel the turmoil in her heart. "Well, alright, but I'm going to come and check on you after fourth period and your going to tell me everything, right? No lying this time?"

"I promise." I nodded earnestly. I hated lying to her. The last time I had tried, it turned into a disaster. She hadn't held a grudge against me, hated me, or stopped being my friend or anything, but I could still see the disappointment in her face that just tore me up inside like nothing else could. Afterward I had decided that there would be no more of that. Ever. "In fact, I swear on my near-future driver's license!" Just the thought of being able to drive cheered me up a little.

This time her smile was more genuine. "Deal. See you at lunch." She leaned in and gave Black*Star a loving peck on the cheek –rather close to his lips, I noticed– as though making a silent promise with him. "And I'll see _you_ in class, my champion."

His dark myrtle green eyes met hers, and he gave her a small suggestive smirk that her adoring eyes slanted at slyly. "Is that an invitation, angel flower?"

She grinned sweetly at him and shrugged as she sauntered away, her long raven black hair gently billowing behind her. She just managed to make it into class before the bell rang again, the signal that class had begun, and whoever was not in their class by that exact moment was officially tardy.

"I am never getting in a car with you behind the wheel ever again." Black*Star muttered as we resumed our route to the Nurse's office, the hallway suddenly very quiet and empty.

"Shut up, dumbass," I spat indignantly, "You knew it was a lesson and that I wasn't experienced yet, so why did you even get in the car in the first place?"

"I wanted to make sure you didn't kill Tsubaki or the instructor, why else?"

"Don't give me that, the two of you were making out in the back seat and distracting us the whole time so you have no legs to stand on, buttfuck!"

"Someone's in a bad mood."

"Well, duh! I just got beat up, so of course I'm not up in the clouds where everything's bright and happy like you are all the time! Stop being a dipshit and hurry the hell up! Those rocks you've got packed under your skin are starting to add to my collection of bruises."

"Oh, stop complaining. If you want to go faster, then you know what has to happen."

I knew exactly what he was talking about. If I wanted our pace to hasten, I would have to let him carry me like we were newly weds the rest of the way, and I was as opposed to that idea as I was to his extreme self-indulgence. Not only that, but I really didn't want to see the nurse's face for the second time this week. And so an awkward silence fell between us the whole way there, and it seemed like a long ass trip.

~**_Later that Morning_**~

The pain had finally begun to fade by the time lunch period rolled around, so I was able to relax and rest comfortably. I had an icepack on each sore spot that Marcus had attacked, which included my jaw, back, neck, and surprisingly my left knee, which may have happened when I fell from my assailant's grip after Black*Star's "grand" rescue entrance.

As it turned out, Nurse Nygus recommended that I go home early as soon as I was able to walk by myself. It was nothing serious, thank God, but I decided I might take the nurse up on her suggestion, anyway. I was in no mood to run into Marcus again. However, getting up after lying in a fairly ample bed for so long –for the duration of both third to fourth period, which was about 2 hours– might prove to be somewhat difficult. A slight drowsiness was already setting in. Noting each ghost or spirit that drifted by was starting to become hypnotic.

"Hey," said a familiar voice from the doorway, "How are you holding up?"

It had been mostly quiet in the room until then, so the sudden sound woke me with a jolt from my day dreams. I turned my head to the side and saw first and foremost Mr. Stein, my biology teacher, coming toward my bedside. It was after he moved out of the way that Tsubaki came into view, along with two other good friends of mine.

"Heard it was Tai Marcus again," said the younger of the boys, his eyes concealed by a thick pair of old man's glasses and the only hair on his shiny bald head two triangular towers rising from either ear like ox horns, "I told him off for you last period."

"And the only reason Ford didn't end up at the Principle's office for it was because I decided visiting you was more important," Mr. Stein interjected disdainfully, "And a more fitting punishment."

It was hard not to notice the bruise on his cheek, probably the place where Marcus had struck him for losing control of his tongue. "You didn't have to do that, Ox." It always concerned me when he tried to stick up for me or anyone else he cared about. Though Ox was physically stronger than I, Marcus proved the strongest as did many of our other adversaries. I knew first hand that to fight back made the situation worse, and that was Ox's specialty.

"Of course I did!" He replied angrily. "What right does that bastard think he has to tear us down just because we can see things that he can't? He has no power to dictate what's real and what isn't!"

I frowned at him, but otherwise said nothing more. It was hard to argue with someone who was as stubborn as Ox was, not to mention he was one of the only people I knew who shared my abilities, if only on a much less powerful level (or sensitive as I preferred). I shot a fretful glance at Tsubaki, who shrugged silently in response as though to say that she'd tried to stop him, but we both knew that it was pointless.

"Calm down, man," said the older boy, though his dark brown eyes burned with the same rage as Ox felt, "We'll get back at him later, ok?" His charcoal black dreadlocks were plastered with sweat to his dark skin, which told me that he had also tried to take a swing at Marcus for me.

"Maybe you just shouldn't do anything, Lunge." Mr. Stein said in a tone of authority, but his warning went ignored, even though such a response was expected.

"Kilik..." Again I held my tongue. Just like Ox, Kilik was also very stubborn, hard-headed, and had a fiery temper when provoked, but on the other hand, he also had a cool and collected head on his shoulders. He knew that there was a time and a place for everything. I always felt a sense of maturity from the aura of his soul, which probably had a lot to do with the pair of little helpers that were always at his side.

I could see them standing behind him now, two very energetic little twin brothers with big ocean turquoise eyes, short sun gold hair, and skin like the light brown earth of tropical soil. They looked like small 5-year-old children with the abilities and wisdom of very powerful nature shamans, one dressed in orange for fire and the other yellow for thunder. Wherever Kilik went, they followed closely in pursuit. Neither of them spoke, but they didn't need to. I could understand them perfectly through their very animated body language and the thoughts and emotions that they mentally projected into my mind. Simultaneously, they both noticed me looking at them and gave me a gleeful grin followed by a rather enthusiastic wave of their arms in greeting for the second time that day.

"Nakatsukasa informed me of the incident," Mr. Stein said from the foot of my bed, and I noticed from under his graying strands of hair that his amber gaze was examining for himself the physical damage I had sustained, "And that annoying brat Black*Star let me know that you couldn't walk by yourself when he escorted you here. Looks like Miss Nygus took good care of you, but how are you faring now, Albarn?"

"Better, but it still kinda hurts if I move too much." I felt the soft probing of his consciousness as he requested permission to enter my mind and evaluate my emotional and mental state of health with his own powerful psychic abilities, which I allowed without protest. It was nothing extensive anyway, but the main reason I accepted was because whenever he entered my consciousness, he projected a soothing wave of comfort that left me feeling relaxed and refreshed. He had told me before that it was a special healing technique meant to help strengthen my general well-being overall against the toll that my powers took on me every day, but I simply liked the feeling of it, and so I welcomed it every chance I could. "I'm pretty sure that I can walk now, but Nurse Nygus told me to go home early, anyway. I don't want to have to look at Marcus again, but should I go?"

"That's probably a good idea. I'll walk you home, Yuuki-chan." Tsubaki said, gently brushing a stray strand of hair from my face.

"Unless you think you can make it 'till sixth period," Mr. Stein said matter-of-factly as he finished his examination and treatment of the state of my inner well-being, "Otherwise the two of you can feel free to leave. I'll excuse your absence, but if I do, Nakatsukasa, I expect you to take good care of Albarn."

"Of course!" Tsubaki replied as though the fact that Mr. Stein could even think that she would do anything less was ridiculous. "She would do the same for me."

"Thanks, Mr. Stein; Hana-chan." I gave the two of them a smile of gratitude, then turned to Kilik's spirit guardians for their jurisdiction on the matter, for in a case such as this one, they would know best. Without the need for me to say anything, they vigorously acted out in a strange jitter-bug dance that they felt I should leave because I still needed to heal, which was the main concern in my condition. To emphasize the point, they jabbed a thumb at the doorway and nodded to me. With less spry movement, I imitated the gesture questioningly to ask if leaving was really the wisest course of action, and they happily gave me a big grin and a thumbs up in approval. Being nature spirits put them deeply in tune with the earth and made them very wise in the ways of healing be it body, heart, spirit, or mind, so I trusted their judgment. After making the decision final in my mind, I turned to Tsubaki, who was giving me a confused look. "Well, Thunder and Fire think I should go, so I guess I will."

Suddenly understanding, Tsubaki smiled and nodded, then gave a thumbs up to the spot where she thought the twins were. "Like I said, good idea!"

Both Ox and I shared a momentary glance, for the twins were not positioned in the spot that she was looking in, but we kept quiet. She and Kilik were two of the only people without psychic abilities who believed we really could see things that everyone else thought was imaginary, and we appreciated that more than we could ever express to them. Maybe we should have corrected her, but it was just too damn funny to watch her try to be like us. Even Kilik thought it amusing, and he had no distinct idea of where the shamans were either. Mr. Stein, on the other hand, looked on with bafflement, as though trying to understand why she would want to be able to see things that weren't there. The twins blinked twice, exchanged a quick side glance toward each other, then shrugged and gave a brisk thumbs up back, even though they were fully aware that Tsubaki couldn't see them.

"They, uh... are glad for your support." Mr. Stein carried the message loosely, and Tsubaki seemed happy with that.

~**_A little while Later_**~

It felt strange to be out in the open, beyond the vicinity of Shibusen campus so early on a weekday. Strange, and yet somehow satisfying, if not a bit unnerving knowing that it was against school regulations. Breaking the rules was not normally my cup of tea, but that was where I found myself, traversing the route I usually took to go back home with Tsubaki beside me.

"I'll be okay without you, you know."

Tsubaki turned to look at me as though I were out of my mind just for thinking such a thing. "I know that you're capable of making it by yourself, but you don't always have to tough it out alone. I won't let you." She wasn't offended by my statement, and if she wasn't so worried about me she might have agreed, but she wasn't about to leave me when I was hurting.

"I won't be alone," I protested anyway, "I've got Blair. She might be an airhead, but she has my best interest at heart." It wasn't that I didn't want Tsubaki to be there or that I didn't trust her. It was just that things were a bit messy in my apartment, and I usually cleaned up before anyone –even a close friend– ever came inside. But that wasn't the only reason.

"Bu-chan is a cat spirit; she can only do so much," Tsubaki replied persistently, "And you've said so yourself that she's impulsive and doesn't always know what she's doing. Sorry, Yuuki-chan, but you're stuck with me for now."

I held back a groan of protest. My biggest concern was that lately, my power had been attracting more and more unexpected or unwelcome visitors, and things were getting a bit out of hand at my place. I really didn't want Tsubaki to get caught in the middle of it. Some of the unwelcome ones tended to be a bit violent and unpredictably dangerous. I sighed knowing that trying to battle Tsubaki when it came to protecting me was like trying to catch air, but I had to at least give it my best shot. "Hana-chan–"

I had what was left of my already failed argument planned in my head, and I pretty much knew how it was going to end… until I swerved to avoid colliding with the shoulder of someone walking in the opposite direction. I caught sight of his face and received a small but sharp vibe that felt like that of an agitated soul aching for deliverance, as though the body that housed it was no longer an adequate host, and I promptly lost everything that I was going to say.

I turned to glance at him, a boy roughly about my height and possibly my age with spiked silvery-white blonde hair and eyes of an unsettling red pigment that reminded me of blood. I detected a sour state of mind from him, as though he was upset or nervous about something, possibly both, and it almost seemed like he was purposefully avoiding my gaze. Either that or he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't even realize Tsubaki and I were present. In my mind formed the letter 'S' with a very specific meaning attached, but whatever it was escaped me before I was able to grasp it. For only a fraction of a second, I had a powerful urge to turn around and ask him for his name, but it passed me by so fast that I almost thought I was imagining things.

"Hey, Hana-chan..." though the surge of curiosity was long gone, I had a feeling that I should ask anyway, "Did you see that guy just now?"

But Tsubaki didn't seem to have noticed a thing. "What guy?" Her puzzled tone and gaze practically suggested that she hadn't seen anything except cars and buildings pass us by for a while.

It didn't bother me too much. I was used to noticing people that no one else knew was even there. He was probably just another of those invisible entities I was always sensing or seeing. I watched him walk away for a minute, noticing how he almost looked semi-translucent and that he seemed to cast no shadow on the pavement, but quickly decided that it was nothing worth getting caught up in. I had enough on my mind to deal with for a good long while, and that was without adding more to my plate than I could handle. "Er... never mind."

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**Holy crap, that turned out to be really really fun to write. Chapter 0.5-A, just in case you're wondering, just basically means this is half a chapter (code for part 1). Just another pointless little tid-bit for those of you who don't know, _Hana_ is Japanese for "flower" and _Yuuki_ means "courage" (I did my best research to make sure of that, but if its still wrong… oh well, I guess. I can always change it). Whether you cared to know or not, there you go. For whatever reason, I decided to have Tsubaki and Maka address each other by using affectionate nicknames using those two words. Not sure why… probably to demonstrate the closeness between them as best friends.**

**Anyhoo, part 2 of the prelude is next, and no offense meant but if you haven't already figured out or at least have an idea of who just passed Maka and Tsubaki by, you either know nothing about Soul Eater or you're an idiot. That was probably the biggest dead give away, I think, but Part 2 will answer that question in any case. Enjoy the crazy making!**


	2. Prelude Part 2: Soul

**You know… it might not just be the youtube video that inspired this. I saw the movie Twilight not to long ago, and… yeah this to me kinda feels the same in a way, just… without the vampire part. Sure, one might show up somewhere but…**

**Anyway, reading on now.  
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**Chapter 0.5-B  
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"...God, this sucks..."

No matter how I tried, the damned door knob just wouldn't shine, and I had been trying for about an hour and a half now. I'd about had it with this place. Unfortunately, I didn't have the luxury to run away. Not this time.

_Then stop doing it._

"Shut up, you're not helping." I growled. I was also starting to get tired of hosting an extra consciousness, too. It made me feel like I was talking to myself, which in turn made me wonder if I really was crazy.

_Now, now, is that how you thank me for the power I bring you? Besides, that bastard has been working you like a slave. Aren't you tired of it? Don't you want to escape?_

"You've been telling me that since he saved my miserable ass." I snorted, impatience, fatigue, aggravation, and not to mention boredom finally getting the better of me. I may have been in control, but he was still the voice of temptation. Resistance, though not entirely futile, was becoming more and more difficult. "Trust me. As much as I'd like to tell him to go screw himself, I would rather be doing this than be stuck in Tartarus, which is where we would end up if Enma ever gets a hold of me again. You know that."

_True, but this life is a dull one, and it's growing duller by the day. I miss our old ways. Why can't we bend the rules a little sometimes? It was much more fun to wreak the havoc that we used to. Don't you agree?_

"Sure, but we would have to face the repercussions, and that wouldn't be much fun either, now, would it? No second chances, remember?"

_Alright, alright, you win... for now..._

And finally he retreated into the deepest crevices of my subconscious, leaving me to wallow in my misery alone. I heaved a sigh, one that made me feel the full extent of my exhaustion. Cleaning the entire 3-story mansion from top to bottom –and having to fight off the little voice in my head– non-stop for about two days straight spent all the energy I had. It was already well into the morning of the third day. But I did it anyway. No breaks, no rewards, no help, nothing. Why? Because hanging the threat of spending an eternity of torment in Hell's deepest dungeon if I made even one wrong move over my head was pretty damn convincing, that's why. It was enough to make me realize just how pathetic my existence really was. How long would this go on for? Was there really such a thing as forever?

That's when I heard it. "Ohhhhhh, priiiiiiiisonerrrrrrrrrrr!"

I grimaced. They were coming again. What would they have me do now? That was all I could think of during the agonizingly long few seconds that I waited for that small figure to violently glomp me. The moment I felt her spindly arms wrap themselves around my shoulders and clamp down with their surprising strength, I knew I was screwed.

"_ARE YOU READY TO_ **RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!?!?!?**"

The full weight of her body slammed into mine and we were on the ground instantly, her giant 34 DD cup size breasts fully squashed into my back. She giggled like a crazed school girl with the mentality of a third-grader as she clung to me with her death grip. I was painfully aware of every detail of her body as I wrestled with her, trying to pry her off of me, but it was a pointless struggle. She had me face up and trapped underneath her in no time flat, straddling me like I was a bucking bronco, her knees on either side of my torso squeezing me tightly to restraint my movements.

"Hehehe, come on, Soul-kun, let's play!" She chirped to me much too happily. Did she have any inkling of what proper physical contact was? Did she even know how to have a normal conversation?

"Get the hell off me, woman!" I snarled back at her. "I don't want to play your games, God damn it! I am _not_ your toy!" It was no use. The more I fought back, the more strength I lost. I was too tried and she was too strong. Even if I had the energy to fight she would still be stronger than me, but being as weak as I was didn't help. Usually I could outsmart her, but my fatigue greatly undermined my ability to think clearly. There was nothing I could do and I knew it.

And with my continued resistance came her ugly side. Out of nowhere, her face contorted and she glared at me so menacingly that I began to fear for my safety. "Fight me, bitch!" At this point, whether I wanted to play or not was irrelevant. I was in for a rough one, and there was no way around it. "You'll fight and you'll like it!" With that, she let out a battle cry that very closely resembled that of a roaring Spartan Warrior in the midst of war. She had chosen to start her insane game right then, without my consent, and by this time she was so fully immersed in whatever role she wanted to be that nothing could bring her out of it. Well, nothing except...

"Sis, let the poor guy up."

I could almost swear I heard the sound of angels singing from somewhere. I saw the long golden blonde hair from a distance, the same color as my assailant's short bob, and I didn't miss the cornflower blue eyes that met with mine as she looked down at me, eyes the same color as my assailant's frenzied gaze. There was no mistaking the resemblance. My saving grace had arrived in the form of another girl, one who undoubtedly shared blood with the girl currently on top of me.

"I'm so sorry about this." She apologized, the sincerity in her voice reflected in the frown of shame she was giving me. It was evident by the difference in height that this was the older of the sisters, despite the fact that she had a smaller 42 C cup size (how the hell did I know this shit?). She looked back up at her sister and glared. "Patty! I said get up!"

"But he never plays with me, Liz," the younger one whined objectively, "And he's so much fun! One time wouldn't hurt, would it?"

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but as I took a sharp intake of breath out of dread, I unconsciously held it. I had seen the relationship between the two of them, and I hoped to God -and probably beyond that- that the older girl wouldn't be so cruel as to leave me to her ruthless little sister's mercy. I would never finish my job in time if that happened. The result would be a confrontation with the master of the mansion, which I had a terrible feeling wouldn't blow over well. Not in my favor, at least.

Liz must have caught a look of the desperation in my face, because she then decided to be my savior. "Soul's not allowed to play yet, remember? I think he's tired anyway, sis, and you know he has to finish his duties or he'll get sent away forever. I'll play with you as soon as we finish our rounds, ok? Besides, Lord Kid-kun wouldn't be happy with any of us if we're late. You don't want to disappoint the master, do you?"

It seemed the maniac monster on top of me had been tamed by her own flesh and blood. It took her a good long minute and a half, but when Patty finally grasped the meaning of her big sister's words, she calmed down immensely. It was almost like she had been magically transformed into a civilized person. "Oh, right! You're so smart, sis! I wish I was as smart as you!" And to my astonishment, she actually got off me. "Let's go finish our rounds and report back to Lord Kid-kun!"

"Good thinking!" I had no idea how she did it, but Liz kept right up with her sister's pace. "We can cover more ground and finish sooner if we split up. You scout on ahead and I'll meet you in front of the master living room. Sound good?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Patty saluted as though she were a soldier in boot camp. If she didn't have so much energy, she might have been able pull off a better imitation. Without waiting for anyone else to respond, she was already dashing down the hallway and vanishing around the next corner.

It was at that point that I finally remembered to breathe. With the reassurance that Liz would keep me safe from the insanity of Patty should the little monster suddenly decide to come back, I let my guard down and fully collapsed to the floor, allowing myself to relax with a huge sigh of relief. Thank God that there was someone in the world who could keep the younger sister in her place. "You don't know... you have... no idea-"

"No need to thank me," Liz said as she reached out and offered me a hand, "Just doing my job as the elder Thompson sister. That door knob is a lost cause, by the way."

It would have taken me a tremendous amount of effort just to get up by myself, so although I normally would have ignored the help out of distrust, I didn't hesitate to take her hand. Luckily she was a lot stronger than she looked, so she was able to support my full weight and pull me up without much trouble at all. That was probably one of the only times in my entire life that I was actually grateful to have someone to lean on. I hated being dependent on anyone, no matter if it was family, friends, or whatever else. It wasn't a matter of trust or something like that, though even I had to admit that was rare. It was just, quite simply, a matter of being independent. Or at least that's what I liked to think it was. You know what they say about yourself being the hardest person to know.

As for the door knob, however... well, that was a matter of freedom. "Kid's orders were that he wanted to be able to see his face in everything from the top of a room to the bottom of it, and he wants it like that throughout the entire mansion." I said impulsively, the routine of my new daily life already programmed into my head. In fact, so deeply embedded was it that I feared if I strayed from it at all, the very fate that I was trying so hard to avoid would easily fall upon me like the dark of night. "If I don't do that, 'bad things might happen to good people', and just so you know, by 'good people' he meant me." As I spoke, I was straightening myself out so that I didn't fall right back onto my ass or end up eating the carpet. My balance was always a little off toward the end of a cleaning session.

I meant it to be serious, but Liz somehow found it amusing. "You shouldn't take everything he says so seriously." She actually chuckled at me like I was being silly. What was so funny about worrying for my freedom and liberties? "The young Master also wants everything in his mansion to be perfectly symmetrical, and I bet you've never seen him throw a tantrum over the slightest asymmetry that he finds. Believe me, even if you're agonizingly anal about it, he'll still find something wrong. He's one of those people who have obsessive compulsive disorder issues, and I mean BIG time issues, REALLY big. Patty and I are always getting an ear full about something not being perfectly straight, whether the fault is ours, yours, his, or no one's at all."

For some reason, this was new information to me. I was aware that the master had OCD issues about things being perfectly straight, but I had no idea that it was to a point past all reasonability. If that meant I could slack even a little bit in the damned maid service he had assigned me to, it was awesome news to me. "Does that mean I can forget about the knob?"

"It means you can forget about trying to be so perfect all the time." She rolled her eyes as she spoke the word 'perfect'. She actually busted a smile about it, like she was so used to the idea that she no longer considered it a cause for concern. In fact, she seemed to find it just as comical as my worries over it. "Whether you do it right or if you're good at it or not, he's just going to go around fixing things anyway. You won't get in trouble, trust me. He'll be too concerned about the straightness to remember to take it out on you, and even if your name does happen to come up, you'd be surprised how easily he can be distracted. In any case, I'd say you're pretty damn safe."

I can't begin to describe how beautiful this news was to hear. It rendered me speechless for a moment or two. I never knew how the Master would take the finished product of my work until the day after when his tantrum throwing was finished, usually because I was always passed out on the floor by the time anyone found me. I was sure Liz was a reasonably trustworthy person, and though I wasn't sure how much truth there was to her words, I was definitely interested in putting it to the test. I would just have to be extremely cautious about it. "...Seriously?"

"Yep!" She replied cheerily, which greatly reminded me with a cold chill of Patty. "In fact, why don't you check out early for today and stick around for the show. I promise you it'll be a good one. Patty should be finished already, so I'm going to go meet with her now. Making her wait for too long can be, eh… 'bad for your health' if you know what I mean. In the mean time, take this." She reached into the pocket of her black leather jacket and pulled out a pink wallet, from which she retrieved a 100 dollar bill. To my utter surprise, it was into my hand that she placed that 100.

"Wha-! Erg-...? Wh-, but...! Huh?" I couldn't help it. I was so flustered over the gesture that I couldn't even talk right. I just stared at the green piece of paper in my hand. It was real alright, but why would anyone give such a thing to me? How did I deserve this? More importantly, what did I need it for?

"Hey, you deserve some kind of reward for your troubles," she flashed me a genuine smile, almost like she considered me a friend or a part of their somewhat dysfunctional family, "But don't tell Lord Kid-kun. I don't know why he thinks its okay to make you work with nothing to look forward to, but that's the way he rolls, I guess. Anyhow, go and buy yourself something. Just don't be gone too long, and don't go too far. By the time you get back, things should be heating up."

I almost didn't believe it. So shocked was I that someone like Liz would offer me any form of kindness –especially the kind involving money– that for just a second or two, I entertained the idea that she might being trying to pull a fast one on me. But as I mulled it over, I realized that although all my time was spent being a lowly labor servant so I never spent much time with anyone but the master of the mansion and his orders, I still knew that Liz was simply looking out for me.

Whenever I suddenly awoke in a bed or on a sofa covered with a blanket after a pass out from cleaning for so long, I could pretty much guess that it was because of the Thompson sisters. There were times where they sneaked extra food and drink passed the master to me so that I had more energy to finish the job. When I wasn't working, they gave me fun little errands to do, such as learning to use the computers in the mansion so that I would be able to play safely with Patty in online virtual realities and rpgs. This wasn't the first time that one of them had offered to do me a small favor, but I never imagined that Liz would trust me with her own hard earned money, and believe me, she worked as hard as I did for that master jerk. Like me, she and her sister had also been saved by the master, the difference being that they worked voluntarily. I didn't have a choice.

A few times, my gaze darted from the 100 to her face while I attempted to process what had just happened. "I can... really spend this? For myself? As in-?" I broke off when she suddenly shoved a finger into my forehead.

"It's For. You. Only." She punctuated each word with a single jab of my forehead, as though implanting the very idea into my mind so that it wouldn't take more explaining. The last word gave me a jab so hard that I almost fell over before her hand fell back to her side. "There's plenty more where that came from. That 100 isn't even close to cutting it."

It felt like years since I had anything all to myself, including myself. After coming here and living this new life, that 100 dollar bill might as well have been a nugget of gold to a starving hobo. I just stood there admiring it, completely forgetting what it was for. I really liked the feeling of holding something that was all mine in my hands.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" She didn't even need to say anything. The sound of her voice alone was all the boost I needed.

Manners totally slipping my mind, I was immediately dashing down the hallway and out the door before I could even remember taking all three flights of stairs down to the first story of the mansion. I don't think she really needed me to say anything. If I knew Liz as well as I thought I did, she would be perfectly contented to know how grateful I was without spoken words.

Only a few minutes later was I returning with a bag in my hand and what was left of the 100. There were plenty of things at the mansion to keep me well fed and hydrated, so instead of getting something interesting to drink or snack on, I decided to treat myself to an experience that I'd been dying to try for a long time. An ipod. It was one of the less expensive and ones, but I was excited nonetheless.

_I thought we weren't supposed to leave the mansion._ The imp's voice suddenly piped up.

Luckily there was no one around to watch me talk to myself for the moment, so I didn't hesitate to reply. "And I thought I told you to leave me alone today." I scowled. That was all I needed to ruin my entire day. I still had the Master's fit to look forward to, but did the little voice in my head really need to talk to me now? I was starting to learn that I was better off by myself.

_Does this mean that you've decided to bend the rules a little?_

"Only on _my_ terms, and only if Liz thinks its okay." Even though I knew no one but the imp could hear me, I still found myself checking just to be absolutely sure. Better safe then sorry.

_Ah, so you've gained the trust of the enemy, then. Smart move, Soul-kun. Perhaps that will aid us in our escape-_

"Will you _stop_ with that? There is no plan to escape because there _is_ no way to escape! I am _not_ going to Tartarus just because you're bored out of my mind."

_But you _want_ to escape, do you not? Where there is a will, there is a way. You've said it yourself. So why don't we...?_

But as he droned on about some stupid escape plan, his words were suddenly lost to me, for it was then that I was no longer walking alone. In the distance, I could hear voices that signaled me to the pair of girls that were walking my way.

The first one... well, she wasn't hard on the eyes to give her props, and I might even admit that she was kind of cute, but let's just say she _wasn't_ as 'bodacious' as her companion. She had a nice figure, but her body had yet to fill out all the way (meaning her breasts had to be somewhere in the B cup size range, possibly a small C), even though she had to be in the 15-18 age bracket. She looked more like she should still be in middle school with her babyish face and half of her long honey ash blonde hair up in a ponytail and a small braid on the side. The outfit was a turn-off. She was wearing a cropped black quarter-sleeved shirt with fashionable tears in it and a pair of short white shorts with a leather belt, over which she wore a strange green cape-like shirt. The single black leather choker and multiple pink ribbons tied in bows that she adorned herself with and the mismatched gloves she wore were no match for the bizarreness of the uneven and mismatched red and purple stockings she wore under brown steel-toe combat boots. She was wearing some sort of black . From the conversation and the way she was limping, I could swear that she somehow got herself hurt in a fight or something.

The other one was definitely one of the hottest babes I've ever seen. She was no stick figure like the anorexic Victoria's Secret supermodels, but she was by no means a 'big' girl. She was almost perfect, a full voluptuous figure without the extra-meat or no-meat-at-all problem. Her deep violet eyes sparkled with a gentle vibrancy, and swaying elegantly behind her was a smooth braid of her silky raven black hair that reached her hips in length. As if to compliment her figure, the soft green halter top shirt, low rise jeans, and white heeled sandals hugged her curves with such a gossamer caress it almost made my nose bleed. Those ample breasts had to be about a 36 D cup size, and I almost hoped she might be wearing a thong underneath those jeans. I couldn't get that image out of my head, and suddenly picturing her in nothing but a thong was all I could think about.

_Hey!_ The imp in my head attempted to catch my attention. _Are you listening to me, Soul Eater?_

It only half worked. It got me out of my stupor at least. I didn't want to answer the little voice in my head in front of a pair of girls, especially when one of them made it on my list of top ten potential one night stands or friends-with-benefits fantasies. I was planning to go for the handsome dark horse impression as our paths grew closer to crossing, but the closer we got, the more I had a bad feeling that I would trip up in front of them. And at the last minute, though I would never admit it if anyone asked, I chickened out.

Almost automatically after I decided not to go through with it, my powers took over and I became invisible, bag, ipod, and all. I knew I would be disappointed in myself later, but that didn't change my mind at that particular moment in time. By the time I was at arm's length of them, I realized why I didn't want to get involved. Despite such a disadvantage, I had to admit that the dark fern green eyes of the cute girl were kind of captivating with the bright glimmer of strength I saw in them. It was almost as though she could be a secret crime fighter or some such stupid thing like that. There was something else there, I was sure of it, but I couldn't put my finger on what...

Until, for a short moment, her gaze locked with mine. I almost lost my cool, not to mention my confidence that I was indeed invisible. Immediately, I cast my gaze down at the pavement as we passed each other by. Even more freaky, the green-eyed girl actually swerved to avoid me, as though she somehow knew I was there. I didn't look at her again, and I contained the urge to look behind me. I could practically feel her green gaze upon my back as she watched me go.

"Hey, Hana-chan..." I heard her say to her friend, "Did you see that guy just now?"

That confirmed it. This girl really could see me. How the hell was that possible? I was invisible, right? Did I somehow use another power without realizing it?

"What guy?" The other one asked, and something in her confused tone told me that she hadn't even noticed my presence.

I was indeed invisible, and somehow a simple girl could still see me. But I was a daemon. If I wanted to be completely invisible, then not even a god should be able to see, hear, or touch me, and yet this girl was able to do just that?

"Er... never mind."

It was only after I heard that statement that I felt it was safe to look over my shoulder. As I did, I was relieved to see that neither girl had chosen to take a second look back at me, but I was still shaken. What in God's name was going on? Could I somehow be only partially visible? "What the hell... was _that_?"

_HEY! Listen to me when I'm talking to you, retard! At least tell me what the fuck is going on! You know I have no control over how much I know of what you know!_

But still I said nothing in reply. I was too upset. Never had I encountered such a thing before, nor ever imagined it was even possible. And somehow, though I was rather disturbed by the event, I found myself more curious than anything else. How was so plain and ordinary a girl able to do such a thing? I actually had to stop myself from turning around and asking her how she did it. I knew that medians were able to see or at least sense a ghost, spirit, or certain dark entities, but they were normally unable to detect the presence of a daemon unless that daemon wanted their presence to be known. I almost wondered if the girl was really human. However, if that were the case, I would have been able to sense it. Instead, I not only got a strict feeling of a human soul, but something else entirely, something that had nothing to do with essence or race. It seemed to radiate from the core her very being, as though deep within her soul she had an impossible power that no human should possess.

Though I had no recollection of when exactly I'd started, I was suddenly running back to the mansion in a frenzy of emotional excitement.

_SOUL! Talk to me for God's Sake!_

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**Aaaaaaaaaaand now I don't know where to go with this. I have an idea, but… Well… best not to rush it. Don't expect the next chapter immediately. I'm beginning to learn that if you rush a story too much, the inspiration really dries up, and eventually you have nothing left and the story just doesn't have that excitement anymore. That's how good stories either go bad or never get finished. So I have to ask you from some extra patience because I'm going to take it slowly.**

**I do know, however, that good stories can come from having no ideas. Take this one for example. I had no idea what to do with each chapter, and somehow all of this just spilled out onto the page. That's exactly why patience is a virtue.**

**_*Edit:_** **Pardon Soul's strange ability to tell a woman's cup size just by looking. I was just editing the chapter a bit, you know the usual tweaking and adding stuff, and this is what happens. Hey, he apparently likes breasts (hense the "tiny tits" nickname he gives to Maka), so why shouldn't he be able to tell? Who knows, maybe he likes porn (don't most men?). I wouldn't be at all surprised if it were his hobby. I have a suspicious feeling that in this story, he probably hasn't been a virgin for a long ass time. Guess, we'll find out.  
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	3. Chapter 1: The Girl who can What?

**Yes, yes, I realize that the supernatural feel isn't really… you know… sparking yet, but give me time, I'm getting there. And of course, the love story part hasn't sparked yet either, but that at least is part of the plan. Just my personal opinion, but love at first sight isn't actual love, its lust. Plus it's a fairytale idea, one that's been done so many times that its dead, too classic and typical and stupid and boring and too fantastical. AND its not what I imagine between Soul and Maka in any case. Despite the fact that their world is just a little bit like that, we need a more realistic feel for this one. I think Soul and Black*Star might kill me if I made them endure such torment, just a story or not.**

**Uh, moving onto a different subject, I've seen another artist/author's idea of writing a story and illustrating parts of it, so I'm thinking about doing that. I'll either do it myself or possibly ask someone to do it for me since I'm not too great with backgrounds or making things exciting and dynamic. Not sure yet, but I'll probably end up doing it myself unless I get a volunteer or two, as long as we get to collaborate on outfits and stuff and they have decent talent (no offense meant, just a preference is all). I wouldn't mind it if people threw a few ideas my way either, illustration or story-wise and what not. A few fresh new ideas are a very good thing for an author/artist.**

**Anyhoo, this is a full on chapter, not half of one or part 1 of anything like the last one. I'll probably have more of those along the way, but for now that's the only time you'll see it.**

**Kay, done rambling now.**

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******Chapter 1**  
_The Girl Who Can WHAT?_

As soon as the huge double doors to the master living room creaked open, a strange foreboding feeling suddenly gripped his thoughts with an iron fist. "You're early."

"That's because he was easy today." Came the almost instant reply as the two of them walked in, like a semi-reassurance of his worried mind. "The aggression hasn't gone away yet, but he seems to be a lot less violent in the past few weeks."

"Pray tell." That could be good news, which made his heart flutter a little with hope, but from what he had witnessed from his many years as a reaper, he knew such things could almost immediately turn around to bite you in the ass if you weren't expecting it. Thus, the claws of the foreboding feeling reached out for his heart menacingly.

"I told Patty to jump him," explained the taller of them, "and even though she went _just _a_ little_** too** far, he didn't seem to even think about trying to hurt her for it. But then again, he was pretty wiped out by the time we got to him."

"I'm sorry," the shorter one flushed giddily, "I know it was strictly experimental, but it was too much fun! I got caught in the moment."

"Heh, yeah, like a village gets swept away by a tsunami." Sneered the older sister, making her younger sister giggle shamelessly before she turned to look at him again and shrugged. "Hopeless! What can you do?"

He shook his head. He could only imagine what the poor sap had to endure with the younger Thompson sister taking the wheel, even for a short moment. Knowing exactly how crazy Patty could be, it must've been daunting. At least there was Liz, maybe the only one who could actually keep the girl in line. On the upside, the idea that the daemon might be finally starting to soften up was making the future seem a little brighter. Hopefully soon he would realize how much better it would be to become separate from the demon of temptation, corruption, and power that made its home comfortably within him. Forcibly, might one add. "Did you do as I suggested?"

"Yep, and he was happier than a clam," Liz replied with a confirming nod, "I almost thought he was a normal person. Hopefully Soul won't blow it for himself again."

"Yes," he agreed with a sigh, "But it is only the fifth test. There's still quite a ways to go, so we can hope for no promises this day. We must wean and detox him from the disease slowly and with care and caution, or the rehabilitation process will go horribly awry." Standing by the fireplace contemplatively, he stared into the heart of the dancing golden flames for a good minute, pondering on if he would be able to lead his 'patient' to a better future as he hoped he could. It had already been a good year and one half that he had taken Soul under his wing, rescued him from a fate that truly was worse than death at the hands of the god of the underworld. The boy was deeply troubled. He had been seeing it in him for a long time, so he devised a way to nurse him back to health in all ways, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Step one of phase one was meant to keep him busy, to distract him from his despair and break the hold of complete control that the imp within him seemed to have. Step two of phase one was to show him kindness in the face of hardship to help his broken soul heal and let him know that he wasn't alone or a lost cause. From the looks of things so far, he wasn't quite sure if things were going well or not.

"Do you think he'll return soon?" Patty asked without too much concern. It was more of a passing thought spoken aloud than anything else. "I hope there wasn't another incident."

"We would have sensed it by now if there was. By the feel of things, I think he may actually pass this time." Liz answered, her voice more full of concern than Patty's as if to fill the void. She seemed to suddenly remember something as she turned to look at him. "Hey, Kid, I told him you'd be having a fit about the straightness of your mansion by the time he gets back. Maybe you should start inspecting."

The very idea of even picturing what his poor beautiful house must look like by now made him sick to his stomach – _really_ sick. He had to stifle a groan just to keep up his respectable imagine (not that it mattered in front of Liz and Patty, but old habits die hard). "...Er... in a minute..." But it was too late. Now that she had said something, the thoughts just wouldn't leave him alone. He tried his damned hardest to chase them away by thinking about what to do with Soul's rehabilitation next, but the idea that anything in his mansion might be even the slightest bit out of place –even though he had people hired to be absolutely sure that every little thing was perfectly straight for him– was already driving him insane. No matter how he tried to dodge and weave, they kept attacking him like a horde of starving mosquitoes until he couldn't bear to leave it be anymore. It was one of those things where only the conformation of seeing it with his own eyes would put him at ease.

Before his brain could register that he had lost all control, he was already scuffling out the doorway at a pace even he didn't know he had.

"And there he goes." Liz commented aloud as she and Patty watched the lord of the mansion hurry away to check on his precious symmetry. That fact that he was already sweating bullets before he saw anything out of place was a sure-fire sign that things would be particularly explosive this evening. Unfortunately, that also meant more work for them to keep him from literally losing his mind.

And at that moment in time, a faint slam of a door on the first floor could be heard drifting up the stairs (yeah, it's that quiet). "Ooh! Sounds like he's back!" Patty chirped with excitement. "He passed! Yay, Soul-kun!"

"Just in time, too," Liz said and headed for the staircase, "You watch Kid, I'll get the 'patient'."

"Okie-pokie, dokie-smokie!" And she dashed off after the young master. As Liz saw it, Patty was probably the only one who could keep up with him once he got going. Hopefully, she would be able to put all that energy to good use and keep Kid grounded without her big sister to help.

So Liz also dashed off on her own path down stairs to meet with the returning 'patient' of the household. It was the best news in the household since the capture of the kishin Asura. If Soul could pass a simple test like this one, than whatever future destiny had planned for him was starting to look up. He might even finally be permitted to leave the mansion, albeit with an escort of course.

"Welcome back! What did you-?" Was what she started out saying before it turned into: "...Uh... Soul? Is... something wrong?"

Her eyes, ears, and fingers could detect nothing, so it seemed as though there was nothing there at all. But she could feel his presence as sure as if she could see him, so she was absolutely sure that he was there. She reached out with one manicured hand for what anyone else might believe to be thin air and purposefully searched for a solid place to rest her palm. "Hey, I know you're a daemon and all and I'm not supposed to be able to see, hear, or touch you and stuff, but I know you're there, stupid. I'm not a god or anything but I'm no longer human either. I'm a Deva and my senses are not dull enough to miss you're presence." She fanned the air a bit in the general area of where she sensed him to be in to get his attention.

It worked. Almost instantly, his form faded into view, but it wasn't exactly the scene she had been expecting. He was out of breath, as though he'd been running for miles, and he had his back up against the door as if to block the way before whatever it was he was running from could get in. Plastered across his face was an expression that unnerved her, for it was something that she had seen in Soul before, and it hadn't been the result of something good. He looked distressed and confused, the kind of disturbed look that occurred only when something terrifying had happened and shattered what was left of his reality, yet at the same time left him wondering just what had really happened. "S-Sorry," he gasped at her absent-mindedly, "Guess I kinda... lost control for a minute there."

She didn't like the way he was acting. He almost seemed detached from the world around him, his crimson eyes glazed with a far-off look of searching for a place to plant his feet in reality again but couldn't find it. "Are you okay? You look like you just saw a kishin or something." It wasn't the kind of look that would normally have crossed the face of a predator whose dormant instincts were just starting to awaken. No, it was more like that of a boy who had lost confidence in his own reality, but that didn't mean it wasn't a bad sign or that it couldn't turn into something more menacing. Whatever good feeling she had had before she reached the first floor of the mansion, it was certainly gone now.

"I... have no idea what I saw..." Soul dropped the bag he was holding and held his hands up to his face to examine them as if he wasn't 100% sure they were even there. "...Is this... a dream or something...?"

This wasn't good. If he was this fazed by whatever he had seen, than no matter that it might just be nothing, he could still dangerous. Soul was like a wild animal in the sense that though he was usually harnessed and appeared tame, he could still spring into action and cause a fair amount of damage. No matter how calm he seemed, like a true predator of the animal kingdom, anything could set him off. Though she was a highly skilled warrior and was trained in the ways of a god's bodyguard and could probably take him out, Liz would still have to handle the situation with care. Losing his trust –which she, Patty, and Kid had worked so hard to gain– was the last thing she wanted. "Alright, tell me."

No response, not even a sigh or a grunt. Almost as though he hadn't heard a single thing she said, Soul simply looked up at her, not truly at her but through her, like he couldn't fully grasp the fact that she was really standing in front of him.

This unnerved her even more, but she kept her composure and took a slightly firmer tone with him, hoping to help him find solid ground. "You heard me. Tell me what happened. You didn't try to-?"

"Huh? ...Er, uh, no... it's nothing like that..." It seemed to help a little. There was a more confident tone to his voice as he spoke. It seemed having someone there who was willing to listen, even knowing all his past sins, without harsh judgment or unnecessary scolding was what he needed.

"Then what?" It made her feel a little better, knowing that he hadn't even been thinking anything devious the whole time he was out. However, it didn't make the dark foreboding feeling she was getting from him any less heavy.

"...I... well... it... u-uhm..."

She wasn't surprised that he was having trouble getting the words out. Entrusting anyone with his personal thoughts was not something he did lightly, not to mention he was in quite a fright (or whatever it was). There was no rush, but as she picked up the bag he had dropped to see what he had used the 100 she'd given him for, she realized she could give him a place to start from. "You bought an ipod." She said as she fished the device out of the bag and examined it.

"Oh... yeah." It seemed something normal to talk about also helped him get his bearings back. "I figured it would be handy to have something to listen to while I'm working."

"Ah! Nifty. Good idea, too." She encouraged him to ground himself further with calm positive enforcement, but she couldn't put the subject off for too long. He needed to talk about it now or he likely wouldn't want to speak of it later, and then things would probably go down hill pretty quickly from there. "So did it happen before or after you got this?"

"Eh, after." It seemed curious for such a trivial thing as an ipod to be the catalyst for grounded conversation. After her mention of it, it seemed to give him a good start, because he then went and spilled pretty much everything. And once he had, Liz found that he had a perfectly good reason to be so distressed.

She herself couldn't believe it. A girl, just an ordinary full-blooded human girl, was able to see a daemon, the most powerful type of astral spirit that there was, when he was invisible. Something like that just wasn't possible. Nothing –not even a god– could see, hear, or touch a daemon once he was invisible. Sure, they could sense the presence of one, but once he was invisible he was untouchable in nearly every possible way. Humans, in all their instinctually physical splendor, were at the near bottom of the psychic pool. A few of them had the power to see into another plane of the astral realm, but it was never significant enough to present a threat. _...There's just no way..._

A human girl who could see invisible daemons. Even the gods would laugh at that one. Such a thing wasn't even a common joke, not to mention it was completely unheard of as a true story. Anyone who might claim such a thing would automatically be deemed delusional or hopelessly insane. In Soul's case, however, he could already be deemed both of those, but he was acting in such a way that it almost made her believe him. _...Is there...?_

"Please!" The frantic tone in his voice snapped her from her deep thoughts. "Please don't tell Kid. I know its crazy and I know it might just have been a hallucination or something, so please don't tell him. If anyone else catches wind of this, King Enma will have my head on a silver platter and then everything you did to save me from him will be in vain. I can't begin to express how much I would rather be Kid's slave than Enma's prisoner. He'd use me as a punching bag and worse."

It was true enough. Enma had very grudgingly released custody of Soul to Kid, his son, knowing full-well that the young Shinigami could indeed handle such a hand-full even with his busy reaping schedule. But it was no secret –and certainly not a well kept one– that the king of the underworld was itching to get his hands back on Soul again, and he was bound to use just about any legitimate excuse he could find. The only problem was that Liz couldn't just leave Kid in the dark. He was her boss, her rescuer, and her friend, and this was the kind of news that you couldn't just keep to yourself. But that didn't mean Soul had to know. They'd been keeping big secrets from him to protect him for a while now, so what did one more matter?

"Alright," she sighed, hoping that this wouldn't cost them later, "I promise he'll never know a thing." She seriously hoped nothing bad would come of making a promise she couldn't keep. Maybe one day he would understand.

It was like his whole being heaved a huge sigh of relief. She watched his entire body completely relax like a soothing wave of comfort just washed through him. At least he seemed calm now, which hopefully meant that whatever danger he might have presented was either delayed or dismissed. She wasn't sure if he regretted his sins, but she could definitely tell that he wanted no part whatsoever in the harsh punishment that he would have been forced to undergo if Kid had not intervened. She couldn't say if it was exactly what he deserved or not, but that was irrelevant now. If the lord of the mansion saw hope that this broken daemon could be restored, than that was good enough for her.

"Uhm, Liz?" He said, and his voice had the tone of a much calmer state of mind, which relieved her greatly.

"What's up?" She replied a little more cheerily this time, expecting that he was about to ask her a favor.

"I know I'm not supposed to leave the mansion for very specific reasons and stuff, but I'd, er..." He hesitated like he wasn't sure it was a great idea to ask, which made her worry a little, but in the end, he surprised her. "...I'd like to go out tomorrow." Upon seeing the shock on her face, he panicked and added rather quickly, "No, no, no! It's not like that! I'm not planning anything horrible, I swear! I mean, I'm not asking to go by myself, of course, and I know the answer is most likely no, but...! Uh... never mind..." And he cast his gaze downward as if in shame for even thinking about it.

Liz couldn't help herself. A huge grin spread across her face until she couldn't contain the burst of laugher anymore. It wasn't the fact that Kid would probably say no or that she thought Soul was being an idiot, but that he genuinely wanted to go do something fun that wasn't within the confines of the mansion walls (which you could pretty much call his prison or cage). Part of what made it funny was that she understood his feelings perfectly. Another other part was that, ironically, he had just passed the test of being trustworthy while beyond the mansion boundaries without doing anything stupid or wreaking havoc. And the last part was because she had a sneaking suspicion that he simply wanted to find the girl who was able to see him invisible again (not that he realized that part yet). Hell, she shared his hope in that last part.

He looked up at her, terrified of the ridicule he believed that he was receiving for asking such a thing. As she'd discovered not to long ago, that was one of his worst fears. But she reassured him with a soft smile and patted his head gently, as though he was her younger brother. "I think we can work something out."

Normally he detested being patted on the head, and would push her hand off or pull his head away out of irritation, but in that moment of further relief, he didn't even realize that she was doing it.

"Come on." She grabbed his wrist and dragged him along back up to the third story. "Lord Kid-kun is probably whining about killing himself by now."

* * *

"...You want to _what_?"

By now the fit throwing was over, and everyone was gathered calmly back in the master living room, all seated on the sofas and lounge chairs by the fireplace. Well, mostly calm. Kid wasn't sure he liked the sound of what Soul and Liz were purposing. Sure, the daemon had passed the test, but he was far from completely trustworthy outside the mansion. If the demon inside him resumed control over him again, which is most likely what would happen, then everything they worked for would be forsaken. And yet here they were, talking about going shopping the very next day? "Are you crazy?"

"Oh, come on, Kid-kun!" Patty giggled. "It can't be _that_ bad if we go with him, right?" It figured that the younger sister would be in favor of such an idea. Crazy. That's all there was to it.

"Yeah," Liz smiled as though she felt it really was a good idea, "I think it would be good for all of us. Besides, we can't keep him cooped up here forever, you know."

That was true, and it wasn't his plan to keep Soul cooped up forever like Enma would have done, but this was much too soon. Not that he couldn't see the look on Soul's face that spoke of both hope and dread, but it was definitely a bad idea to let someone like him loose when his rehabilitation was still so very far from completion. As much as he wished that it were complete, he sighed in dismay and shook his head. "Look, I'm sorry, but for now the answer is no."

Patty heaved a groan of protest. "But it would be so much fun-!"

"I said no!" The way he said it made it clear that the decision was final.

The whole room went silent, even more silent that it normally was. So silent was it that you could not only hear a pen drop like an explosion but the echo that would follow until it dissipated, and then the ghost of it would still reverberate throughout the hall.

Kid sat forward in his seat and rested his chin on hands cupped together. He noticed as everyone else shifted uncomfortably where they sat, and how each of their gazes was submissively fixated on everywhere else but him. Patty's eyes were shifting restlessly, trying to find something to entertain herself with visually; Liz stared into the heart of the fire, and it seemed that she was lost deep in thought; Soul's gaze was locked with the carpet and they refused to move at all, as though he were about to get an aneurism from humiliation and shame, and maybe from whatever argument he might be having with his inner demon.

At that point, Kid sighed and relaxed against his chair in further dismay. He hated when it got like this. Even his closest friends wouldn't defy him just because he held a position of great power, being the son of Enma, the god of the underworld and death, and Themis, the goddess of the law of nature and prophesy. Sure it had its perks, but it also had some downsides. It was mostly because of his mother, who held an unfathomably insane amount of power as one of the few primordial divinities that remained unretired from godhood, but compared to her, Enma was far more frightening. As it turned out, Kid was born a shinigami and thus the heir to his father's throne, but he was more like his caring mother in more ways than one. A god who was a death spirit with some power over justice and nature, plus some subtle oracular abilities. It was unheard of but by no means looked down upon. It actually made him much more powerful than most other shinigami in the world, though his power had yet to fully manifest. Hense his title, the Prince of Rectified Death.

It was at that moment that Soul tried to quietly stifle a yawn, disrupting the ominous silence. It was understandable that he was somnolent. He worked for a nearly unreasonable amount of days without sleep or breaks, so the fact that the daemon was about to pass out wasn't surprising.

"Go ahead and get to bed, Soul," Liz ushered him quietly out into the hall, "You've got all day and night to rest up. I'll take care of this." He uttered a faint thank you to her before he disappeared out the door. She then came and sat back down, and this time, her gaze wasn't as submissive. "Kid. I promised him I wouldn't tell you anything, but this is something you need to hear."

The fact that she was staring him right in the eye so intently made the foreboding feeling that he'd had earlier return with a vengeance. "What is it?"

"When Soul came back," she began to explain, her voice taking on a serious tone that was almost grim, "he was invisible, out of breath, and had his back against the door like he'd been running away from something. When I finally got him to make himself visible again, he had this disturbing look of distress on his face, and when I asked him what the matter was, he started acting really distant, like he was unsure of what was real and what was not."

As she spoke, Kid found himself unconsciously straightening in his sitting position as memories flashed through his mind. He had personally witnessed many of Soul's past crimes while trying to save him from himself, had seen a look in his eye of desperation for hope though he had the mind set that he would find none, and so he also had a very distant and cold attitude. And then there were times where he would become totally unfeeling and emotionless, and that cold and distant aura would become an absent one, as though he had completely withdrawn or died within himself. That was when he attained his worst sins, and it was all because of the demon within him, the disease that had stripped him of his humanity and torn it apart, then killed who he was and molded what was left of him into a mindless monster. That was why it was not Soul's fault that he was what he was. The demon he hosted had made him what he had become. That was what Kid was trying so hard to undo.

"I had to calm him down before I could get him to confide in me," Liz continued, her sister talking, chanting, singing, and giggling to herself in the background, "and I don't know if you'll like what he had to say."

Kid swallowed hard, hoping to whatever divinity that gods prayed to that Soul hadn't done something horrible and ruined everything. "What did he tell you?"

"He went and bought himself an ipod with the 100 that I gave him," she went on, Patty now doodling on herself with a pen that she'd found, "and as he was coming back, he encountered a pair of ordinary human high school girls. He didn't feel like being seen at that moment, so he made himself invisible to them, and here's the insane part... _one of them could see him_."

The bombshell was enormous. Kid's mind began to race with the implications, trying pathetically to both prove Soul right and prove him wrong at the same time, his heart pounding with an assortment of countless emotions that attacked and surged through him without waiting their turn. What the hell could this mean? There was no possible way that this was possible, and yet could it be? It was almost more than a young god could handle. That's when his thoughts finally started to come to just one conclusion. He needed to ask someone for help, but he couldn't tell just anyone. There was only one person he knew for sure that he could trust. "...Mother..."

Before Liz could say anything to stop him or what not, he was up and sprinting for a mirror. Gods normally used a special kind of empathic telepathy to communicate, but it was complex and took decades to develop, and Kid was still short a few decades of either knowing how to use such a complicated ability or even being able to use it. So godlings and teen gods had to resort to scrying, a technique that used a medium (usually some sort of smooth reflective surface), a sharp trained mind for trancing, and incantations which could be used to either see visions of the past, present, or future, or communicate with other divine beings. Once he located the nearest mirror –in the bathroom of his master bedroom– he was in a trance and muttering words of an ancient divine language faster than his own mind could keep track.

Also faster than he could keep track, the deep soothing voice of a woman warmed his thoughts. "_I have been awaiting your call, my son. What is it that ails thee so?_"

And in his minds eye came the vision of a gentle-faced woman, a goddess so old that she was beginning to lose her human appearance to her age beyond numbers and expanding colossal power. He had heard before that her human form was that of a woman with gentle blue eyes, a long soft river of deep golden hair, fair sun kissed skin, and a body of divine beauty. Though she was still beautiful, her age was beginning to show. Her eyes were still gentle and kind, but they no longer held an iris, nor did any white remain left in them. Now they held within them a wise sheen of all the world's wisdom encompassed within a captivating cloudless midday sky that went on forever. Her hair billowed gently behind her like a cape of sunlight, even more brilliant in its color of the sun, but now with the iridescence of the blue of the Caribbean sea, the forest green of foliage from a tropical paradise, and the reds and oranges of autumn leaves. Her fair divinely flawless skin had darkened with the grounded deep brown color of the earth's soil. The rest of her was gaining a small hint of a ghostly translucence accompanied by a soft white glow, the greatest hint of her coming of the godly retiring age. Though her form was still human, she no longer had the true appearance of one, so she had no need of clothing herself, for there was nothing to hide from view anymore.

It was true that she was unimaginably old, and yet she was one of his father's lovers, his father who wasn't even half her age yet. For gods, however, age, gender, and bloodlines were irrelevant. Those were problems for ephemeral physical beings like humans, not divine beings. Plus gods could reproduce via a few means other than sex.

"I need your council, mother," Kid answered, her presence calming him down considerably, which allowed him to think clearly, "Something... er... unexpected has come up, to put it mildly."

"_I know_," she replied, her deep almost telepathic voice carrying a tone of deep knowing, "_I have foreseen it for many eons. Your question for me is what you must do now?_"

"Yes." He nodded. It had been a while since he'd talked to his mother, so he had forgotten how she seemed to be able to predict pretty much anything. It almost surprised him that she knew, but it hadn't been that long since they last spoke together.

"_What do you feel compelled to do?_"

"...I... have no idea."

"_And what does your heart tell you?_"

"My heart is just as confused and stressed out as the rest of me."

"_Have you had any visions?_"

"Not recently, and nothing about this." He was aware that she didn't really even need to ask him those questions, she was simply asking to help him figure it out by himself. Playing along usually helped, but this time it seemed that ideas were not trying their hardest to flow into him.

"_Then here is your answer: allow him out._"

"W-what?" At first he had no idea what she was talking about, but then it hit him like a brick in the face. "Wait... _him_ as in Soul?"

"_Fret not, my little one,_" she crooned to him gently, "_Things will not go as badly as you fear they will. In fact... they may go even better than they are now._"

Kid had no response to that. How could they go better if he simply let the monster out of its cage before it was tamed? But as always, the goddess of prophesy had the answer.

"_It is alright, Little Death. Let the beast pursue the beauty. Let him share the burden. Only the acceptance of another who shares the same pain can heal a wounded soul, but it takes a power beyond all imaginable reason to tame a monster. Tell no one, but you must not keep secrets. Follow through in this, and no matter how dark the night, morning will always come._"

There she went again with her riddles. She was infamous for that, but he knew better than to argue with her for a straight answer. "Yes, mother. Thank you."

"_I love you, dear one,_" she told him rather unexpectedly, "_Never forget._"

"O-Of course. I love you, too, mother." And he bowed his head respectfully, not just because she was a goddess who was held in the highest regard, but because she was his mother, and she deserved the respect of her son.

But as she left his mind, he had to ponder at her words, a small cloud of dread clinging to his thoughts. Of course he knew how much she loved him, and of course he loved her back. He was her only son, and her most precious child, and he loved her because of the love and the gentle nurturing way she had raised him with. But since they already knew, they never really needed to express that with words. It was simply an unspoken inner knowing they shared. So why would she all of a sudden feel the need to say it to him, and now of all times? Was there something going on among the gods? Was she maybe planning to retire from godhood soon? Or perhaps she was simply expressing her support to him. Whatever the reason, it didn't leave him feeling any better than he did when he had first called to her.

As he returned from the bathroom and opened the door, he heard the sound of footsteps backing away and saw Liz and Patty standing before him, looking both expectant and worried. It wasn't unlike them to eavesdrop, and it didn't bother him as long as it was just them, so he didn't feel the need to get irritated or scold the sisters. He also didn't mind having the sisters around when he needed someone to speak to. He trusted them enough that he felt comfortable sharing what was on his mind with them. They knew that, but they still made way for him as he passed between the two of them to sit on the black comforter of his bed, and still they waited very patiently for him until he was ready to talk.

**

* * *

**

**Okay**, **so I promised that I wouldn't drag in any made up characters except the faceless ones that don't really play a huge part. However, Themis technically doesn't count as a made-up character since she's already a real goddess, and I actually kept as close to her original part as possible. She really is a very powerful primordial goddess with power over the law of nature (that's what her name means) and prophesy. She's a greek goddess, so I figured it was convenient since two of the original characters in Soul Eater are named after greek mythological figures, Arachne and Medusa. We have no idea who Kid's actual mother is, and I chose Themis because of another Soul Eater story I thought up that has an organization of Furies that keeps the justice of the world and stuff. I figured it would be kind of convenient and interesting to make Kid's mother the goddess of justice and stuff. Speaking of which, I should probably tell you that there is a difference between daemon (day-mon or die-mon) and demon (you should know this one). Demon you know, but a Daemon is something totally different. Look it up to find out more (I'm running out of space here).**

**I also apologize for not putting Kid's tantrum throwing in detail. It would have made the chapter much too long, but I promise it'll come up in detail somewhere.**

**Well, anyhow, I noticed how the characters are actually a lot more OOC than I originally intended, but I kinda like it. It suits the story pretty well.**

**Okay, done ranting again.**


	4. Chapter 2: Not Too Good!

**_Say what!_ Yep, it's the moment you've all been waiting for (I think)! The chapter where Soul and Maka finally interact! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUN! Stay tuned!**

**Okay, I think the level of that supernatural feel might actually go up this time, and I apologize if the beginning is kinda boring at first, but it gets better I promise.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Hey, Maka... how do I look now?"

"Wow, it looks awesome on you! Damn, I could never pull that off."

"You will someday. Don't worry so much about it, Mai-chan!"

Maka groaned in protest. "That doesn't make me feel any better, Blair."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop showing off now." The spirit mewed as she returned to her kitten form from her favorite drop-dead gorgeous human girl form. For whatever reason, the cat spirit loved showing off that body that she adored so, a body of almost exaggerated full-growth and sexiness that put even Tsubaki's to shame, and of course that did nothing to boost Maka's self-esteem of her own image.

It was the weekend after her wonderful little brawl with Marcus and her bruises had almost healed, so at least she wasn't so sore anymore. Having just woken up, eaten, and showered, she was trying to find something to wear for the girls' day out shopping spree that Tsubaki was forcing her to go on that day. Normally she didn't like leaving the house, preferring to curl up with a good book or study for school, but her BFF was famous for somehow manipulating her into going to their group outings with a few other friends. Of course, considering Maka was not all that popular at school, she didn't know most of the people that were going with them, so she was feeling rather nervous and uncomfortable. And her self-proclaimed household ghostly resident was not making things any better by materializing outfits on herself that made even the best supermodel almost look ugly.

"Anyway, so what about this one?" Maka inquired as she pulled out another outfit idea.

"Too out there." Blair replied without hesitation.

So Maka ditched the idea, placed the clothing back on its hangings in the closet, and took out another one, which Blair also promptly rejected. And though they had officially gone through that process three times already, they went through it again about six or seven more times.

"No, no, no, that won't do!" Blair objected once again. "You want to look nice not strange, not too casual but not formal. Don't you have anything like that?"

Again Maka groaned, this time with frustration and much more feeling to it as panic set in. "I give up! It'll be noon in half an hour and I'm STILL not ready! What if they turn up early? I'll make everyone late, and then they'll all be mad at me! What the hell am I supposed to do? I have no idea what I'm doing!"

"But you've done this before." Blair tried to comfort the girl, but the way she said it sounded more like she thought Maka was over reacting, which didn't help at all. "How many times has Tsu-chan made you do this and you did just fine?" Although she as usually a big help when it came to helping people realize their problems, she was not so good at making them feel better.

"I _wasn't_ just fine!" Maka cried, pacing back and forth rather quickly as she tried to think for herself what she was going to do. This kind of thing just wasn't her forte. "They usually laugh at what I wear or I make them late because I _can't_ do this! This sucks!" She was almost tearing her honey ash blonde hair out by the time proper help finally arrived.

It wasn't totally unexpected or surprising, but it still caught Maka off guard when a random ghost suddenly floated in through the wall, the wandering spirit of a teen boy, and cut off what Blair was about to say next. "No need to panic, girlfriend!" He declared in a rather annoyingly metro manner, which made it obvious and clear that he might very definitely be gay. "I happen to be an expert at fashion! Let me see what you've got in here." And without waiting for permission to be granted first (as most spirits and ghosts did with Maka), he floated over to her closet and unabashedly took charge.

Since he couldn't really touch anything, he had to ask Maka help him out by picking through the clothing available and letting him get a good look at each one. She tried not only to ignore his metro-ness but to be careful with what she said to him. He was apparently very talkative and somehow managed to hold two different conversations at once, sometimes confusing her and Blair in the process. It was kind of exhausting to be honest.

Eventually, however, he managed to find something for her. "Perfect!" He cried out once he found what he was looking for. "This will do just fine!"

"Oh, yes!" Exclaimed another random ghost who just happened to be floating by at the time before he disappeared through the other side of the room. "I like that very much!"

"As do I." Said another, a fat rich woman with a snobbish attitude as she spoke.

"Superb!" Exclaimed another one with a thumbs up.

"Nice wrack!" Hollered a ghost boy as he floated passed, and he didn't forget to whistle at Maka before he floated away.

Maka blushed furiously and tried to cover herself with just her arms, having nearly forgotten that she was wearing nothing but her underwear. If he had been alive she would have slapped him. She didn't normally care if a ghost or spirit saw her in such light, but whenever they made such comments, it made her just want to find a ditch to wither away and die in.

It didn't help that Blair burst out laughing and playfully swatted Maka's backside, making her cry out in surprise and glare at the feline spirit grudgingly. "See? I told you you're pretty!"

The gay ghost beside Maka simply chuckled good-naturedly at their antics. "Okay, let's get you dressed now before something else happens, and then we'll do your hair."

All of the things he chose were clothing items that Tsubaki had forced her to buy, claiming that she looked both cute and pretty in them. But Maka had as much confidence in the beauty of her self-image as she did in the day that Black*Star would finally realize his arrogance and change his ways. As a result, she never actually wore them, which she suspected –with a pang of guilt– disappointed Tsubaki to a small degree, but her BFF seemed to have confidence that Maka would find it in herself to suddenly become aware of the so-called-beauty she possessed and finally wear them. Maka had serious doubts about that, but she had a feeling that wearing them now (as much as she would rather not because she felt she couldn't pull them off at all) would make Tsubaki enormously happy. And so, without too much objection, Maka quickly dressed herself in the attire of a blue loose-fitting halter top that was longer on the right side than the left, making it flow gracefully down her right hip almost like a sideways dress, a pair of light-colored quarter-legged jeans with slits at the hem, and silver sandals with glittering straps that criss-crossed around her ankles all the way up to her calves.

As a bonus, the ghost also decided to make her wear three different necklaces of varying lengths, a long black belt that wrapped around her waist twice, three gold hoop bracelets on her left wrist, and a pair of earrings from which dangled three different silver strings with crystal beads at the end that, like the necklaces, each varied in length. These were also things that Tsubaki and a few other friends had either given her as a birthday gift or bought for her randomly. As soon as he was done with that, he then had her hair put up in pigtails that were tied rather high upon her head with red ribbons that dangled down to her shoulders. Though she had worn it like this a lot when she was younger, this was not a particular hairstyle that she liked too much anymore, but because it actually made the outfit look decent on her she again didn't protest. He even forced her to wear a small amount of make-up, which she usually detested because of all the work entailed, but with his guidance, she actually kind of liked it. Even though it altered her facial appearance slightly in tears of beauty, it almost didn't even look like she was wearing any make-up at all, and she found herself feeling happy with that.

As soon as he announced to the whole apartment that he was finished, she found that she was very pleased with the overall result. Normally she would have declared that she would never pull off this look if she had seen anyone else wearing it, but she found that it wasn't so bad. Thus, her self-esteem received a huge boost.

"_So cute!_" Blair exclaimed with a squeal of utter adoration. "It's _perfect!_ You look absolutely adorable, Mai-chan! I couldn't have done better myself!"

Maka giggled with delight. "Thanks! It _is _awesome!"

The proud gay ghost gave a few bows of gratitude for the praise. "Thank you! Thank you! Autographs will be later!"

Upon admiring herself in the mirror for a few moments to be sure that she liked everything about it, Maka turned to the gay ghost and bowed politely. "Thanks a ton! Can you come around more often? I'm sure Tsubaki will make me go to another one of her get together shopping sprees in the near future, so I could use the help. As you've seen and heard, me and fashion don't exactly get a long too well."

"Sure!" He grinned at her with pride over his work. "I've got all of eternity to hang around. Whenever you're in fashion trouble, just give me a holler! Name's Jake, by the way."

Almost bubbling over with joy, Maka giggled again and almost forgot to introduce herself as well, but she managed to get Blair's name in there somewhere. It was just as Jake drifted away that the doorbell rang. A burst of excitement surging through her, Maka raced for the door as Blair wished her luck and handed her the purse that Tsubaki had also bought for her so that she could carry her ID and cash properly. The only difference with this item was that Tsubaki actually made her use it, rather than wait for her to see the use in it.

There was a burst of gasps and noises of surprise as she opened the door to greet her visitors, and then a wave of questions and exclaims of "cute!" and "what happened to you?" as she made the journey with them down the stairs of her apartment complex building. As they gathered into the awaiting car and drove off to their destination, she did nothing but give them vague answers and reply with many a "thank you!" as they continued to bombard her, trying to get her to talk about where this sudden change had come from. There was no way to describe the feeling of pride in herself at being the topic of conversation, not that being popular was on her list of top ten things she really wanted out of life. Best of all, Tsubaki's smile brightened with joy and pride in her friend, which made Maka's whole day.

The topic eventually faded away as they reached the boardwalk where all the gift shops and food buffets were located near the ocean. It was too cold that day for swimming, but it was without a doubt a good day for a shopping spree. Maka was sure they hit almost every store and restaurant that there was to see. It didn't take too long before she got bored of it (not to mention tired of walking around and eating junk), but even if she were to complain, no one would hear her. They were all too busy checking out what there was to horde all to themselves. Only three girls actually took notice of her growing listlessness.

"Maka? Are you okay?" Asked Kim, a girl with short light pink hair and lovely sea green eyes who was in a lower grade and of a younger age than Maka. She was one of the only girls in the group that Maka actually knew and was friendly with. She sat next to Maka on a white bench as the other girls all crooned and swooned over the puppy that a man was walking around with.

"Yeah, you don't look so good." Jacqueline agreed as she sat on Maka's other side, an ice cream cone in her hands. She too was another casual friend of Maka's with her long ash brown hair and dark chocolate eyes.

"Oh, it's nothing, I'm fine," Maka assured them, refusing to be the one to send everyone home, "Just, uh... wondering what we're gonna do next!" She forced one of her most authentic fake laughs as best she could without failing miserably. The truth was that she was actually starting not only to feel exhausted but faint. However, it wasn't bad enough to ruin everyone's fun. She likely was just dehydrated or needed something healthy to eat. At least that's what she tried to reassure herself with. Truth be told, there was actually another more unique reason that she might be feeling a bit sick...

There was only one person who could see through her facade so well. "Yuuki-chan, if you're not feeling well just say so." Tsubaki approached the three girls on the bench with her own ice cream cone. "It's okay if you want to go home early."

Maka knew she had no chance against Tsubaki and her woman's intuition, not to mention the fact that her BFF knew her so damn well. But she still fought it anyway. "I'm fine, Hana-chan, really! I probably just need a drink or something, that's all."

"If that's the case, then let me buy you a water bottle." Kim jumped to her feet and dug through her purse for what cash she had left.

"You don't have to... well..." She had a feeling that no would not be taken as a suitable answer, so she changed her tune a little, "Well, take my money instead. I appreciate the offer, but don't waste what you have left on me, Kim." And Maka dug through her own purse for her allowance.

"No, keep your allowance, Maka," Kim shot down Maka's only defense, leaving her completely dependent, "Your mom sends you that, right? That means it's only for you and what you want. Looks like I've got plenty left, so it's really not an issue, anyhow. I'll be right back!"

Once again, everyone was catering to her like she was helpless. And somehow, there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. She wasn't as meek as they all seemed to think she was. In fact, it probably wasn't even that. It might be the fact that she had gotten beat up just a week ago, or that she was always picked on for her ability. Or they just thought she was special ed. That last one just killed her, but what could she do? There weren't many people in the world who would actually believe that she could see things no one else could. So she just sighed and decided to go along with it. "Hey, could you also get me some rits crackers?" She yelled after Kim, and then lied through her teeth. "I've been dying for some all day!" She wasn't actually craving rits, she was simply hoping that they might help her feel less queasy. At least it didn't sound weird coming from her, considering that she was already officially deemed the strange one.

"Yep!" Kim shouted back before she disappeared into the crowd.

Maka tried her best not to look disgruntled about it, but she caught a vibe from Tsubaki that alerted her to her own failure. Not wanting to have to discuss it, even with her BFF, she decided to side-step the conversation by making something else up. "I'm gonna go find a bathroom. Be right back." She could sense Tsubaki and Jacqueline glance at each other, exchanging their thoughts of worry silently, but Maka was gone faster than they had time to say anything to catch her.

She didn't really need a bathroom. She just wanted some time to think. Thus, the self-confidence that she had started with fell into the negative zone once again. Finding herself alone on a rocky precipice beyond the safety of the boardwalk's railing, sitting on the only flat –slightly sloping– rock surface that she could find, she stared out over the peaceful blue water, watching a pod of dolphins playing in the distance as the sun began to set. A few passing ghosts and a spirit stopped to ask her what was wrong, but she ignored them. Feeling offended by her rudeness, they humphed and floated away. There was no real reason why, but suddenly she felt rather depressed. She wasn't normally so sensitive about things so trivial, but lately it seemed that everything was getting to her, small and large. And there was only one reason why. "Guess it's time again..."

Whenever this happened, it was because she could never cut herself off from neither the living world or the dead, and even once she did cut herself from one, the other would still suffocate her. That's when her whole world would start to feel dizzy, and various things could happen from there. Sometimes she would fall seriously ill; other times she would just faint and wake up a few hours later. And other times, she felt like she was loosing her mind. There was nothing she could do to make it stop, so she'd had to live with it since she was 4-years-old. She was 16 now, which made it 12 years since this nightmare all began.

She hoped it wouldn't be something serious this time. More than that, she hoped her sanity wouldn't be undermined again. That had only happened once, and it had been even more terrifying for her than it had been for everyone else who happened to witness her loss of control. She sighed into the breeze and hugged her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees solemnly. So lost in thought of her past was she that at first she thought she was hearing it in her head, that semi-crazy laughter that seemed to be coming closer. For a moment, she feared the worst... but then...

"Patty! Get back here! It's not safe over-!"

"Come on, sis! The breeze is great!"

It was as Maka turned to see who was talking that she saw them, a pair of girls who looked so much alike they may as well have been sisters, and two boys. One of them appeared rather regal, as though he could be the son of some rich and powerful family, and the other...

_...Blood red eyes... silvery-white spiky hair... a sour state of mind... swerved to avoid him... a small sharp vibe of an agitated soul aching for deliverance, like the body that housed it was no longer an adequate host... the letter 'S' with a very specific meaning attached... lost what I was going to say... what was his name? ..._

**_...My name is Soul Eater Evens... Kakodaemon... dangerous... Why is life not worth living anymore? ..._**

**_...Don't be an idiot... I chose you for a reason... you know what you exist to do..._**

"_Patty!_"

"I'll get her!"

Maka gasped involuntarily and blinked several times in shock. The déjà vu she'd just had made her head spin in circles, but she remembered it like a flashback. A week ago, the day when Marcus had last beat her up, she had been walking home early from school with Tsubaki. It was during their walk home that she had seen a strange figure pass them by, but Tsubaki had not. She could remember him almost perfectly. And that's when she had so suddenly ended up inside his thoughts, which made her so dizzy that she couldn't even sit up. Her head throbbed with a crippling light-headedness and she stumbled around for a minute, trying to get her bearings back, but she ended up on her side on the rocks, moaning in painful dazed confusion with a few scrapes as a reward.

She could hear voices, but she was completely unable to make out any words at all, not even the idea of the form of words. Everything seemed to be moving, and she wasn't sure which way was up, down, or sideways. For what felt like an eternity, she swam in an endless sea of incapacitating vertigo, unable to even move and know if it was her leg or her eyelid that she was moving. Confused, in pain, and scared to death, she had no idea what was going on. She couldn't even remember three seconds ago what she was doing or thinking. She tried crying out, but she couldn't even hear herself, let alone anything else now that the ringing in her ears had gone to full blast stereo level. It happened very suddenly that she couldn't breathe...

**'Focus!'**

Coughing and wheezing, Maka almost choked to death when she heard the voice in her head. _What?_

**'I said focus! You're only dying because you think you are! Try to calm down and everything will be alright.'**

_Dying?_ That just made her freak out even more.

**'Come on, concentrate! Try to calm yourself. It will be alright. Nothing's wrong with you, just breathe.'**

_I can't!_ Breathe? How could she breathe when her lungs wouldn't even work?

**'Yes you can, focus. Calm your thoughts and think hard. Focus on remembering how it feels to breathe. Don't think about anything else. Push everything out of the way. Clear your mind.'**

_...Who are you?_

**'It doesn't matter now, stop distracting yourself.'**

So Maka tried... without success. _It hurts!_

**'Don't be a baby. Just do it.'**

_But I'm scared..._

**'Don't be. You can do this, just try.'**

So Maka tried again. It took all she had to converge the center of her attention on her breath, and it hurt like a bitch. The whole time her body was screaming at her with terribly powerful urges to take a huge gulp of air, but she did her best to ignore it. It was excruciating, but she managed to grab a hold of her thoughts and focus on a very detailed memory of how to inhale slowly, and then exhale and let it out. Eventually, the agony faded away, and she fell into a deep meditative trance. She didn't even realize it, but before long, she was breathing like normal again.

**'Now,'** the voice said, waking her from her trace, **'Open your eyes.'**

_Huh?_ She did as she was told, and suddenly everything was back to normal. It took her a few seconds to realize that her eyes were wet with tears, there was a small dribble of saliva on the corner of her mouth, and not only was she tightly clutching a black shirt that smelled masculine, but she was staring into the blood red eyes of the boy she had seen a week ago. The one who's name was Soul.

He just stared down at her, looking very guilty, as though he had been the cause of her sudden relapse. When she tried to meet his gaze to thank him, he turned away with a pained look on his face and uttered a quiet, "...Sorry..."

Maka blinked a few times out of confused. He must've been the one who saved her, but why was he sorry about it? "...For wh-?"

"Yuuki-chan!" Before she could even get a chance to talk to him, Tsubaki came stampeding through the crowd, Kim and Jacqueline not far behind her. Without even pausing to thank the boy who had Maka in his arms, her BFF pulled her away and took her into her own arms, a very frantic look of worry on her sweet face. "Thank God you're safe! Thank God!"

"Maka! Are you okay?" Kim exclaimed, sharing Tsubaki's distress and carrying a water bottle in one hand. "What happened?"

"We heard that you almost fell to your death!" Jacqueline cried.

As the three girls worried over Maka, who tried to answer all of the questions they were bombarding her with, she tried to catch her savior's gaze, but though he was still sitting nearby, his eyes were cast to the ground where they couldn't see her gratitude. It wasn't long before her friends, out of worry and impulse, ushered her away and called off the shopping spree.

* * *

"...That was pretty amazing, you know."

He knew Liz was trying to make him feel better, but it wasn't working. "I nearly killed the girl. What's so amazing about that?" It had been him, his thoughts, and the demon within his mind that had caused the girl –whose name he had finally discovered was Maka– to suddenly have a seizure. She wasn't even sick in the first place. She had been perfectly healthy. And then somehow, she tapped into his mind, read his thoughts, had seen his thoughts from the past week when they'd first seen each other. And then she met the little demon in his head, and that's how the whole thing started.

She had been in such a paralyzing daze that she couldn't even sit up right. Though she struggled to stay sitting up, she hit her head on the sloping rock face she'd been perched on, and from there she nearly slid from the precipice and into the rocky water. It took both Soul and Patty to pull her back up and bring her to safety. And then he had to make the agonizing decision to dive into her mind and save her by tricking her into thinking that it was all in her head. The power of thought was truly amazing when put to the test.

"I meant how you saved her." Liz remarked, but she probably didn't realize how truly un-amazing it actually was.

Soul snorted. "Yeah. Sure. Amazing. Whatever." All he had really done was put the powers he had used to hurt others in the past to good use for a change. The powers of suggestion and possession that he used to make people do gruesome things that they were never do, such as hurt those they loved, granting them the agonizing awareness of every detail, but rendering them utterly helpless to stop him. What was so amazing about how he used such tools of torment? It didn't matter what they were used for. Their only true purpose was causing undeserved pain to innocents. As fully aware of that as he was and as much as he despised doing such things, it somehow came naturally to him. Was it because his life sucked? Or could it be that he no longer gave a shit anymore?

"Soul-kun...?" Patty gazed at him curiously, appearing totally oblivious to the nature of what was being said, but he knew full well that she understood perfectly. She simply was not used to him acting this way.

"What's amazing," came Kid's voice from beside him, "is the fact that you're able to regret that it was you who set her off." He was staring pointedly out the open window of his private limousine, but they weren't driving anywhere. They were simply sitting by the ocean, watching the sunset and enjoying the things they had bought for themselves while out shopping.

Something inside Soul, like a string that tethered him to whatever measure of sanity he had regained by being the boy god's servant, suddenly grew taut. He did all he could to keep an angry growl from arising within his throat as he glared at Kid silently from the corner of his eye.

"That girl is stuck between the astral realm and the physical world, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the soul of a human." Kid went on. Annoyingly, he was aware of Soul's sudden irritation, which he knew from the shinigami's return glare of warning. "I suspect that she's a very powerful nexus which attracts many astral entities constantly, and she has no idea how to control it. That just makes it even worse for her. She was already in too deep by the time we got to her. You were simply the last straw." He turned away, assured that Soul had received his message (which further annoyed the daemon), and closed his eyes. "Well done on correcting the problem, by the way."

"OoooOoooh! How did he do it?" Patty squealed excitedly. At this point, whether she was still pretending to be oblivious or not, Soul didn't care. She was now apart of what was annoying him.

Kid opened his eyes again to watch Soul, monitoring his red zone level carefully and taking notice that it was rising. "He entered her subconscious, as she had accidentally done to him, and not only put up a shield around her but was able to pull her free from the astral world for a small span of time, allowing her to cope and recover before returning her. By doing so, he relieved the pressure that had been building up. It will only build up again, but for now she'll be safe for a few months."

Liz seemed to take notice as well. "That _is_ amazing!" She tried to alleviate Soul's irritation with flattery, even though she knew that at this point, it was a useless tactic.

"I'm glad you were able to feel something of remorse, Soul-kun!" Patty exclaimed. She was following her sister's lead, but for a completely different reason.

It didn't snap, but the string was now being twisted around like it was a toy, which put enough pressure on the daemon that he finally needed to step out. "Yeah, well, now I remember why I don't want to feel it anymore." With that, Soul shoved the door of the vehicle open and stormed out with the intention of taking off.

"Soul, no!" Liz panicked, reaching out to grab his coat to try and stop him. "Wait!"

But Kid stopped her with one arm blocking hers. "Soul," he called out to the daemon, his tone belying a grim warning, "I'll let you go this once, but don't do anything stupid. If you commit another crime, I won't be able to save you again. And don't stay away forever, because I _will_ come for you."

Soul said nothing He simply stood there for a moment, weighing the options that were laid out before him. But then turned invisible and took off without giving any form of response. He could sense Liz's anxiety, Patty's confusion, and Kid's worry as they watched him vanish into the dusk. He knew he would have to return eventually, but he need to be by himself at the moment. There were things he needed to think about alone.

* * *

**Well, I think that was a good place to stop. Wasn't sure for a while there. I'm not going to apologize about the gay ghost thing, btw. I will apologize that I made him seem like the stereotypical kind, but** **otherwise I kind of enjoyed creating him. I might even throw in a lesbian and a bisexual in here somewhere, just because it sounds fun.**

**I do apologize, however, if this chapter ever got boring. I was feeling kind of grumpy the day I finished this and I wasn't putting everything I had into it as usual. Things aren't exactly going well at home right now. It'll get better soon, but for now its not too good. I'll try to do better with the next chapter. I don't feel well enough to edit right now, so check on that tomorrow.**

**Anyway, I'm at a loss of what to say now, so I'll just go work on the next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 3: Something Dry & High

**Well this chapter… holy crap it took a while to write! I'm so sorry to make you wait for so long again, but at least I'm not disappointing you. This chapter is quite the bang I think. First intimate contact in the entire story, but I didn't go into too much detail with it because it would have made this chapter way too long. This is basically establishing the characters of Black*Star and Tsubaki, and setting up a future meeting with Maka and Soul, so it's worth the read, I promise you that.**

**Anyway, let's get on with it, shall we? You've waited long enough for this.**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

Finally! Jack pot.

The demon smirked with such excitement that he almost couldn't contain himself. At last, his host had broken free. And best of all, his host was very upset. It never did take much to break him. Now all the demon needed to do was push things along.

_Well done, Soul Eater! You got us out all on your own._ _We never needed a plan after all, did we? What do you say we go have some fun, now?_

As expected, Soul didn't respond. On the outside, he was invisible and perched upon a rooftop bathed in the light of the moon and stars, but he was not admiring the view. He had his knees tucked in close to his chest, supporting his crossed arms in which his face was buried, as silent and still as the void of space. On the inside, however, he was slumped in a dark corner of a room within his subconsciousness filled with black and red lighting, just near the smashed piano, having just finished destroying everything he could. The demon could see his form visibly trembling with exhaustion and strain from the assortment of emotions he had just burned through; could hear the offbeat gasping; could feel the frantic pounding of his heart. Even in the dim and bazaar lighting, the demon could very easily see the river of tears endlessly flowing down his cheeks.

Even more prominent in the shadows was the blood. After he had taken his frustrations out on the helpless furniture, he had even more viciously turned on himself. He couldn't die, but he could certainly harm himself. There he was with the dismal black & white stripe design of his formal suit almost completely stained red, ripped open to expose pale flesh. And the flesh underneath had also been torn apart, entrails spilled forth over the black & white tiled floor, some torn out, others completely shredded, flaps of skin dangling from muscle and muscle clinging desperately to bone. He had been reaching for his own heart again. And again he had failed to find it.

The demon sneered down at the boy triumphantly, knowing full well what transpired every time Soul did this to himself. If he could get his host to relent to him, he would be able to once again regain the control that Death the Kid had broken, for it was he who held onto the heart that Soul was so desperately searching for and it was also he who withheld the boy's ability to age and die. With it, though he led the boy to believe that he had complete control, in truth it was the demon who had the upper hand. He was the embodiment of insanity, temptation, and corruption. Even if the host had control, with despair, agony, and fear as his tools, he had the power to break that control down and lead them into glorious ever lasting chaos, all just for the sake his own entertainment. That was what he existed to do, and his host was nothing more than a shell in which he made his home, a pawn for him to use for his own gain.

The boy knew nothing of this. He simply thought that he had lost meaning in his life, that he had destroyed everything he ever held dear all on his own, and that his destiny was to suffer this way for eternity, never ending and never dying. It was the perfect way to keep Soul in his clutches.

_Soul-kun,_ the demon said, taking careful note of the way the boy's eyes had lost their gleam, _There is no need to be so down._ _Let us plot revenge against the shinigami who held us hostage for so long. Perhaps that and bashing a few human heads in will make you feel better. _He offered a hand to the boy who could only imagine a perpetual and peaceful death. _Revenge always fixes the problem, does it not?_ _Even the Gods will attest to that. Now come, you are weak without me, so allow me to assist you._

The boy looked up at the demon with the light brown hazel eyes that he used to have in the days that he was a mere human, stands of messy hair that had once been light blond falling into his face. At first his gaze was a blank one, that of a broken and dying spirit, an empty heart devoid of all feeling, the strength in his will all but absent. He had been a weak-minded human from the start. That was what made him an easy target.

But the storm was not over yet. Soul's human eyes narrowed dangerously at the demon, his face filled with passionate hatred, anguish, and rage. It almost seemed as though, on some level, Soul somehow knew that he was being used as nothing more than an instrument of devastation. "Get away from me." Out of no where, the boy let out a grunt as he reached out for the demon, his intentions more than obvious.

The demon stumbled away rather clumsily to avoid the blow, suddenly finding himself fearing for his safety in the consciousness of someone this self-destructive. It wasn't the first time this had ever happened, however. It was merely a side effect of picking goods as damaged as this one. But he was willing overlook it because of the benefits. It was hard to come by hosts who were easily manipulated, not to mention one that matched the flow of his power so well. Luckily, Soul had caused himself too much harm to be able to chase after the demon (or to move for that matter), so he was safe a good distance away.

_Come now, Soul-kun, be reasonable-_

"Shut up!!! I _hate_ you! Why can't you just leave the fuck me alone!?" Soul roared at the demon, a fresh flood of tears streaming like a river down his face. He was fully aware that he was powerless to do anything else but scream out meaningless obscenities, insults, and threats rather tactlessly in defense. But he was starting to lose his grip on his sanity now, which meant that it was only a matter of time.

The demon simply watched him from afar with his best poker face, waiting for his opportunity to strike once the boy broke. He didn't even have to do anything else. The boy was torturing himself. The demon was simply taking advantage of it. Soul would fight it with all he had until he exhausted himself, and it would take a good while with the renewed strength that the shinigami had provided him with. But it wouldn't save him from the inevitable.

It was only the subconscious part of the boy's mind that was attacking him. On the outside, Soul was still quiet. The only difference being that he was starting to think the offer over. This process was exactly what that damned shinigami prince had been able to prevent by keeping Soul busy and providing the boy with a positive environment. The friendship and positive strategy of discipline was something Soul had not experienced for about a century or more now. That Kid would have to be dealt with somehow, but that was a problem for later. For now, he had time to retake Soul before his shinigami savior again came to his rescue.

Before too long, Soul was collapsed on the floor, bawling and sobbing pathetically in submission to complete and utter despair. He was a hapless infant, vulnerable and incapable of defying his fate. That was when the demon made his move, and all he had to do was dangle some form of hope that Soul could cling to, attaching him to the demon once again.

_Soul Eater,_ the demon took on a more forlorn tone, acting the part of a caring friend while knowing that he had already won, _Forgive me, for it was I who made you this way._ _It pains me to watch you suffer like this._

Again Soul didn't reply. He was curled up in the futile position and trying to hide his face in his palms, abused, humiliated, and at last defeated. His blood was still pooling on the floor with no end in sight, and it was nearly all the way around the room now. The demon had to step in it and soak his black shoes in red just to get close to his host. If it had been a mortal wound, the blood would have stopped by now and Soul would have been dead long ago. But in one's subconscious, the blood of a wounded soul could flow forever. With immortality, on the other hand, the blood would not flow at all.

_Listen to me,_ he kneeled beside the boy at arm's length, still unsure if Soul's struggle was finally over, _There may be a way to restore yourself._

"...You've said that before..." The boy replied quietly, the last drops of defiance he had left evaporating away, leaving nothing but a numb and empty aura behind. The image of him in his subconscious mind whimpered in a horse voice, purposely avoiding looking at the demon.

_I know, but this time I am willing to relinquish my hold on you._ It was an outright lie, and maybe Soul could sense that to a degree, but the boy seemed to be too far gone to care, because things became quiet rather suddenly. _Yes, if you can find the Dreiache, I will let you go._

This was completely new to Soul. "...The... Dry-what...?" He didn't move from his position, but he did sound somewhat intrigued.

_Its form is unknown,_ the demon explained,_ but it is one of the most precious treasures in this world, and one of the very little known._ _Very few even know of its existence, so you would have no competition to trouble you in finding it. I suppose you could call it another version of the legendary sorcerer's stone, but its power is far greater than even the gods. From what I've heard, it can grant its user absolutely anything, no strings attached, no limitations, nothing. Whatever you desire, the Dreiache can make real._

"How am I supposed to find something like that?" Soul groaned skeptically, sounding utterly unconvinced.

_Have you ever heard of numens?_

That seemed to catch his attention. "...No..."

_I don't know exactly what they are myself, but I have heard that they are very powerful beings. Any gods that have heard of them marvel at their strength. The Dreiache has some sort of connection to them. With it, you can see and communicate with these mythical supreme beings. I have no doubt that the gods would not hesitate to try and destroy or hide such a thing, for in the wrong hands or if misused, it can shatter reality and destroy the universe with only one measly shot._

"…If that's even true... than why the hell would such a thing exist?"

_Who knows, but it's your way out of this mess, so if you want to try finding it, be my guest._

The demon had a good feeling that he was getting through to the boy. It was a promise of all Soul had ever wanted and more. But it was an utter lie. The only thing the demon could actually promise was that Soul would be free to go. Should the mythical power of the Dreiache actually be within his grasp, there was no doubt that he would intend to use it for himself. If such power were his, he would no longer need to leech off a host body. He would have his own, and he would have the universe dancing in his palm. At least that was what he would hope for. Truth be told, he had doubts that such a thing might actually exist since he'd heard it from a rather unreliable source, but that didn't stop his lust for power. If Soul actually managed to discover the item, this esoteric object of such unfathomable power, nothing would stop him from getting his grimy claws on it at all costs.

It worked just as he thought it would. Though still he did not move from his position, Soul finally shifted as if in consideration. And then came the response that the demon knew would turn in his favor. "...Let me think about it."

*******************************

"Whoa, whoa, hold up, let me get this straight! The freak nearly fell off of where-who-when-how-what-now? What, was she on something?"

"Black*Star!" She knew he had no faith whatsoever in the idea that Maka had any kind of ability at all, and she didn't feel that forcing him to understand was the best course of action, but he could at least try to be nice about it. "Come on, now, this is serious! She could have died! She's lucky that all she walked away with was a few scrapes and a concussion."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry, Tsubaki," He quickly stopped laughing, knowing that she was the only one around who could hear his surrender (and the only one he would allow to hear it), "You're right. I shouldn't be talking about your best friend that way anyhow, and it's not like she's a bad person or anything so I'll take it back. Besides, I wasn't there, so what do I know?"

Truthfully, he was glad that there was no one around so that he didn't have to argue with her and get her upset. They were seated in her blue convertible late at night, parked in the lot of a small abandoned warehouse, looking up at the stars and waiting for the forecasted meteor shower to begin. It had been decided that this was better than an actual movie to go along with the dinner of that night's date. Thankfully for them, they were totally alone. He hated picking a pointless fight with the girl who mattered most in his life, but when it came to upholding the public's image of him, it was an automatic reaction over which he had no control.

Tsubaki sighed and smiled faintly at her boyfriend. He was a thickheaded and dense idiot when he wanted to be, but he was more sensitive and compassionate than he let on. "It's okay. Thanks for apologizing."

He grunted in reply, a reluctant agreement that she was right and he was in the wrong. His tension melted as she leaned over to embrace him and kiss his temple in gratitude with such tender love that he couldn't resist her. The gentleness in her touch made him feel as though if he didn't respond and grab hold of it, it would fade away and he would never experience it again, a great fear of his which he could not bear. But at the same time, he knew that she would not leave his side so long as he cherished her as much as he did and returned the favor. So he gladly reciprocated by reaching out with one arm and draping it gently around her shoulders, welcoming her to continue with her showering of butterfly kisses on his face. The sensation of her soft lips made his flesh tingle no matter what she did with them, and he enjoyed her affections to the point that he could get a bit possessive sometimes. He couldn't help it. The acceptance and forgiveness she offered him so willingly and easily made him feel more happy and free than he could ever express to her. He was aware that he had a few jealousy issues, but as long as she was willing to forgive his idiocy, he felt that beating himself up over it too much was unnecessary.

It was only one of the many things, and he wasn't sure how well she knew, but her moist mouth was his drug. The moisturizing chapstick she was always wearing made her velvet lips taste like gossamer blueberry, and her mouth was always cherry mint fresh from the seemingly limitless supply of Listerine strips she always had stashed away somewhere. He could smell it now, and it was overwhelmingly intoxicating.

He knew that she loved being able to show him her affection, and because she was such a hot babe and he was such a cool guy (or so he liked to believe he was), he had no qualms with letting her do so in public, whether they were alone or not. The only problem was that if she kept doing what she was doing –especially if she drifted any lower than his face– things in 'feel good' places might wake up and he didn't want to end their night so quickly. The show hadn't even begun yet. So he thought up an interesting conversation to save them.

"So… you never really did tell me," he said absently, trying to control the surfacing urges attempting to make him respond in a much stronger way than was appropriate for the current moment, "How did Maka not die after almost falling off a cliff?"

As intuitive as she could be, Tsubaki caught on and settled for leaning against his smaller body and resting her cheek on his shoulder comfortably, savoring the warmth of his presence. "Well, she had a little help."

"From you and some other friends, of course?" He wasn't wrong to assume so, for that was usually how the event unfolded. However, he was in for a surprise. A small one and one that had no shock value to it, but a surprise nonetheless.

"Actually, no," she replied, her voice making it sound more surprising than it actually was, "We wouldn't have gotten there in time, so she had outside help."

"Oh, really?" He found that he had to pretend to sound like he cared, which at the very least helped calm his libido, "From who?"

And she described to him the event that had occurred with more details that he really cared to know about. He had discovered some time ago that it was a habit for women to be able to remember and recite more details than was necessary, so he decided that some of what she said was not important and what he didn't catch as she rambled on with her breathless rant, he put aside as nonessential information. Putting on his best listening act, he followed the gist of the story as she told it to him, which he gathered was pretty much the whole day, beginning from when she picked up Maka to after Maka returned from her short trip to the hospital (one of the many). It only got interesting around the part where Tsubaki described how Maka was saved by a group of strangers. After that, it pretty much came down to Tsubaki's regrets of not thanking the rescuers for their valiant efforts to help. He was left to wonder just how these strangers were able to stop the girl in mid paralyzing, breath strangling seizure. It was almost enough to make him reconsider the possibility that Maka really could see things that weren't there. Almost.

"Hm… If that's true, I might almost start to believe the freak." It was nothing but an absent thought spoken aloud. He hadn't realized what he said until he felt the warmth of Tsubaki's body leave his, and suddenly he felt cold and ashamed. He knew how sensitive she was when it came to her best friend and the burdens they both had in common, and he had just gone and insulted that. They were kindred spirits. They shared such an affinity that it had been what brought them together and wrapped them tightly in friendship. To know that someone else out there was carrying a curse just as hefty as her own made Tsubaki feel like she was not alone, and to insult that was to tear down what made her stronger as a result. At this point, he wasn't sure if she might be overreacting or if he had gone too far. He didn't want her to be upset, not tonight.

Realizing his mistake, he tried to correct himself before things went horribly awry. "I…I'm sorry! I did it again, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, honest. Tsu-" He tried to reach out to her with one hand to reassure her that it was true, which it was, but the look on her face stopped him in mid reach and sentence.

She was staring at the dashboard blankly, an expression of dismay clouding her beautiful gentle violet eyes that were normally agleam with spritely joy. It nearly destroyed him that she almost looked like she might cry, sitting there in the driver's seat of her vehicle like she had just been slapped in the face. "I… I find it interesting… That you believe in me, but… but not in Maka, my best friend." And she turned that fragile look upon him, and it occurred to him to wonder if she knew what kind of devastating havoc that look wreaked upon his heart. "Why, Black*Star? Is it because you can see my curse, but not hers?"

It was right about then that the meteor shower began, thousands of tiny streaks of light dashing as fast as lightning across the clear starry night sky like the thousands of nails he felt being hammered into his soul. He understood exactly what she was getting at, and he knew where this conversation was going. They had been on this road many times before, and not once had it ever made him feel this guilty. He almost felt like he wanted to jump off the ledge of a sky scraper if he could find one. The only thing keeping him rooted in his place in the passenger's seat was the idea of leaving Tsubaki on her own. That was the only thing aside from her painful look that would have really killed him.

He knew what needed to be done. He turned away from her and cast his gaze downward at his feet, allowing his face to fill with the guilt and the pain that he felt as he did so most shamefully. "…Sorry… That's probably it. I trust only what my eyes can see. But…" And, with as much strength as he could gather, he turned to look at her again, willing himself to face the expression on her features that might just be the end of him, "Please understand. I know that she is not a bad person and she's not really a freak. But I don't think I'll ever be able to get that image out of my head. You remember that night, don't you? She almost killed you, Tsubaki! You're…" That was all he had in him. He could see her face softening at his words, and he was more thankful than ever that they were so utterly alone so that he could show her how sorry he was, but the guilt he now felt was doing its damage upon his mind's thoughts. "…So precious to me… I'd tell you to stay away from her, but I know you wouldn't listen to me anyway. You're too understanding and accepting to leave well enough alone, and I felt that if I was to forbid you from her friend, it would be like telling you not to be who you are, and… I just can't do that."

He could remember what happened so clearly. Maka had been perfectly fine one minute, healthy and stable. She had been feeling somewhat sick and unnaturally tired before it happened, and it happened so suddenly that she went berserk on everyone. In the middle of a sentence, something in her had snapped and her sanity seemed to have flown out the window so casually. Somehow, though he had tried to help restrain her and fight her off, she had strength that he didn't know she even possessed, strength that knocked him across the room effortlessly. He would never forget the way she behaved, nor what she did either. It had been frightening for everyone. The only other time he had ever been so scared in his life was when his father was still alive.

It didn't take long for silence to creep between them. In his moment of dismay, while his thoughts whispered memories of horror and fear to him, Tsubaki took that time to absorb every detail of his reply, take in what he said and the way he said it, observe and analyze the agony on his face and in his body language, and came to a conclusion.

Before he could think of anything else to say that would appease her, he felt her luscious form of a sudden lean on him once again, her slender arms wrapping themselves around his neck. She buried her face in his chest and he felt her plump breasts pin his left arm to his side between them, squished against his muscular build in such a provocatively sensual way that his thoughts scattered and he almost forgot what was going on as a light haze briefly took over his mind. But it didn't take him too long to realize what had just happened. He looked down at her and saw that she was embracing him with such love as he thought might make her heart burst from her chest, and an intense feeling of undeserving gratitude overwhelmed his entire being. She had forgiven him again.

Her face remained buried in his chest for a long moment, and he knew that she was savoring the feeling of having someone who understood her and loved all the same, despite the curse that she bared. Reluctantly, he returned the embrace, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and placing one hand on her head, resting his lips in her hair in a long kiss. No longer was the meteor shower the center of attention. After another long moment stretched by, though he felt undeserving of her love and forgiveness, he felt the urge to express to her how much he truly loved her.

"Tsubaki." He called to her in such a way that it told her to looked up at him, and when he saw the huge smile on her face, he knew exactly what had just happened. But it didn't really come as a shock to him, and since it was just them, there was no need to make a big deal out of it. "Alright, you got me. I keep forgetting how good you are at acting."

She giggled very happily into his chest at his compliment. "Forgive me. I wanted to know your true feelings on the matter. You never really act yourself until you upset me, or haven't you noticed yet?"

"Yes, I noticed." He replied dryly. He was returning the smile even though he felt kind of manipulated, but Tsubaki was not a player. She was clever and was a good actress, but he knew all too well that she never used her charms and talent with ill intent. "I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm good at acting too."

"Yes," she narrowed her eyes at him, mocking a glare that didn't quite look like a glare, "A little too good for your own sake, I'd say." She softly tapped his nose with one finger to emphasize her point.

"This coming from the master manipulator herself. I guess I should take that as a compliment–" He didn't get to finish that sentence. She had locked her lips with his before he had the chance, which surprised him at first and took his guard down, but it only took him a second to give in and return the fire on her lips.

Gradually it grew into a passionate kiss, tongues caressing each other and exploring the crevices of each other's mouth that they knew so well, more so than they cared to tell. She let him pick her up and lay her across the back seat, where he straddled her legs and proceeded to plant soft kisses on her neck, nibble and lick at her ear and collar bone, and slowly began to unzip the back of the blue corset style blouse that she had been wearing. She responded with soft moans and reaching her hands under his white tank that read "Star Player" across the front, giving a little gasp of pleasure whenever he found a particularly sensitive spot on her flesh.

They had done this so many times before that he knew where all her zones were, and he had learned to exploit each one in a kind of randomized pattern, making her shiver beneath him, and she would reward him with a small squeak of surprise whenever he played the game right. Her hands explored his whole abdomen underneath his tank, which was already half way off of him, exploiting the sensitive groves of his flesh expertly, making him moan and shiver in response, his member already growing hard.

Before the meteor shower was over, they were more than lost in each other. Even if something were to happen in the parking lot beside the car, nothing would have deterred them from the fiery passion that had consumed them so completely. To them it seemed to have lasted the whole night, but in reality the rain of light across the sky hadn't even finished their brilliant dance not more than a few hours passed before the lovers were too exhausted to go on anymore.

It was Tsubaki who first realized that they had neglected to put the roof up on her car before hand, but it no longer mattered now that the deed was done. The only thing left to do after that was quickly dress themselves, sit in each other's arms, and watch the rest of the show as it finally began to fade away.

Even though the night was still yet young and it had been played out perfectly, her mind still a haze of their loving making, Tsubaki found herself thinking about the day before. Her thoughts returned to the distressing memory of Maka's near-death experience, and the young man that had saved her life. Because the friends had such a bond of trust and kinship set up between them, Maka did let Tsubaki in on what had really happened before they left the hospital room. And so Tsubaki was left to ponder the young man whose thoughts were apparently a war zone between his subconscious and his conscious mind. She had initially sensed such turbulence underlying the calm outer demeanor he presented himself with, but she had been much too worried about losing her best friend to even remember to acknowledge his presence. She felt terrible for that, but it was too late to go back and apologize. All she could do now was hope that she might see the young man again and be able to not only apologize for her rude behavior but thank him for his heroics.

Almost as if the cosmos had decided to grant her wish, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, a swift streak of white like a ghostly apparition, and she whipped around to see what it might have been. Upon turning to inspect the situation, she gave a small yelp of surprise. It was exactly the person her thoughts had been focused on not a moment beforehand.

"What?!" Black*Star reacted immediately and went into defense mode. "Tsubaki, what is it? What's wrong? Did you see something?" He tried to see what she was looking at, but she had already lept from the car and dashed away before he could identify anything unusual in the general vicinity. "Tsubaki!"

He was sprinting after her, but Tsubaki paid him no mind. In the heat of the moment, she almost hugged the young man though he was a stranger for turning up exactly when she had wanted him to. However, even if she hadn't restrained herself, he turned to her with a look in his blood red gaze that scared her even more than the crazed eyes that Maka had when she went on her spree of insanity. This young man almost looked like he might attack her the same way, and Tsubaki found herself stepping away from him for fear of her safety. But she managed to break free of the control of her instinct to run and stood her ground. "Y-You're that same guy, right? The one from yesterday? You saved my best friend's life, remember?"

Her very mention of the incident seemed to brig memories rushing to the front of his mind, and she saw something like regret creep into his eyes before he turned away from her, almost as if in shame. "…I am. What of it?"

"I… wanted to thank you for saving Maka, and tell you that I'm sorry for totally ignoring your presence. I really am sorry for that." She wanted to get it out before she forgot what she wanted to tell him, and before she was lost to thoughts of pondering what was going on in his heart. There was a lot of pain sitting on his shoulders; it was obvious even to the blind of eye. Maybe that was what that frightening look in his eyes was.

"…The girl…" He seemed to kind of snap out of his strange haze a little at the mention of Maka. "…How is she doing?"

"Just fine, thanks to you." She replied softly, wondering at the purpose of his inquiry. "She walked away with nothing but a few scratches and a minor concussion. She was a little dazed from the stress when I brought her home, but she came out of it good as new the next day. I think a little rest did her a world of good."

"…That's good." Was all he said. He turned his back to her so that she no longer had the ability to try and read him.

"I think you should go see her for yourself." Tsubaki said, remembering how Maka spoke of him when explaining how he had saved her. "She's been thinking about you, lately. I hear you only exchanged one word to each other. It's not proper for the rescuer to leave before the damsel in distress thanks him as is her right. Don't you think so?"

He did not answer her. He shifted in his position, half turning to glance at her and half taking a step away from her, and she caught the pained look on his face, as though he were fighting with himself inside. She noted the gleam of guilt in his eyes and specifically remembered Maka talking of how they had exchanged thoughts. She had probed his mind by accident, and then he had probed her mind in order to save her. Perhaps he felt guilty for taking advantage of her and entering her mind without gaining permission first. Something seemed to occur to him, and he turned to fully look at her and something else was in his gaze, something like awe and wonder, and then he asked her. "…Tell me… does she see things? Like… things that no one else can? Like…"

"Like ghosts and spirits?" Tsubaki finished for him, demonstrating to him how well she understood what he was trying to say. He nodded to her and she gave him a warm smile. "Yes, she can. She has one living with her in her apartment, a cat spirit named Blair, who keeps her house safe from dark entities and keeps out the hundreds entities that drift through her room everyday if she asks. But it's not all fun and games like that. Yuuki-chan doesn't always tell me, I'm sure she just doesn't want me to worry, but she sees more dark entities than good ones, and they are usually very powerful ones. She seems to attract a lot of astral entities, more so than some of our other friends who can see things." As she spoke, she almost didn't notice the look on his face that spoke of desperation, and somehow she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Don't be stubborn, go see her. Tomorrow is a holiday from school so she'll be working. You can catch her when she goes to lunch at Subway's around noon on Warble Street."

He turned away from her again as though taking her suggestion into consideration. "...Sounds like the two of you are very good friends." He said almost absently, and something came from his mouth that surprised her. "So… what's with the "chan" thing? That's not her real name is it?"

But it was only a small surprise. "It's a Japanese prefix that means dear one. It's usually only used by girls who are close friends to address each other, or husband and wife type situations. We use it because I'm Japanese and Maka is half Japanese. She calls me Hana-chan because hana means flower in Japanese and my name, Tsubaki, is a Japanese flower, and I call her Yuuki-chan because Yuuki is Japanese for courage, and she has such courage in the face of danger and fear, so it all fits!"

And she got another surprise out of him before he finally walked away from her. He smiled. It was a small one, and kind of a bitter one, but it was a smile nonetheless.

As he left, Black*Star came up behind her and wrapped his arms both protectively and possessively around her waist and resting his cheek against her arm, to which she responded by reassuring him with a kiss on his forehead and holding onto his arms with her hands. They returned home soon after that.

* * *

**It is established within the manga that both Tsubaki and Black*Star are full Japanese, and its hinted that Maka is also Japanese, but its not established whether she has full blood or half, so I just went with half, sry bout that. And I kinda reinstated the whole nicknames thing that Tsubaki and Maka do, but at least now there is a good reason within the storyline for it. I wasn't quite expecting that one myself, but I'm glad its there.**

**And thank you so much for the reviews! You goes are the only reason I keep writing this story, and I really hope this story keeps going cause it's a good one and it deserves to be finished, so don't stop reviewing!**

**Okay, I'll get working on the next chapter now. Should be a fun one. I had time to think up a very interesting idea. What is it you ask? Well I can just spoil that for you! It ruins the chapter! Sorry, but you'll just have to wait and reading it for yourself. Hopefully it won't take quite as long as this one does.**

**P.S.: If you read this before the editing, come back and reread and look for the Edit note I'm going to leave to let you know when its done, cause I'm putting this up raw. It helps me proof read better.  
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	6. Chapter 4: Is It Fate or Isn't It?

**I'm sorry!**** I'm sorry for making everyone wait so frickin' long! I didn't know I'd be so distracted by things like moving plus a few personal issues, but the odd but good thing is that I re-watched all three seasons of Avatar: the Last Airbender non-stop, and it revived my desire to continue writing this, although it may also be due to rping soul eater as well. Well, at least I can present to you a decent chapter to appease your wrath, and hopefully keep myself from getting killed.**

**Anyway, remember that surprise I promised you? Well… After so long and not writing it down, I totally forgot what it was. I remember it had something to do with Maka's father but… all I can remember was Spirit-san and an idea I still have for Soul's brother, Wes. But I'll figure something out and fit it in somewhere along the way. Plus this chapter will explain quite a few things for us. It will still be a good chapter hopefully, I just... have no idea what to do with it now. Well… we'll see what I can incorporate into it.**

**BTW, Anyone with suggestions go ahead and tell me what they are, cause if even if I don't use them, they will still help me out a lot. Anyway, here it goes.**

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**Chapter 4**

**"...Mother?"**

Right on time. That was her son. And who would expect less from one who was obsessed with things being perfectly symmetrical?

It was just as she was observing the brief but fateful meeting of the two souls, one mortal, the other eternal, in her mirror of the present. The entire top level of the ten story building was her humble abode, a giant golden sky palace atop one of the highest mountains in the world. The room she was in now was entirely empty with three front walls as mirrors and a white back wall where the golden doorway was. The front mirror, the one she faced now with her back to the door, was the Mirror of the Present. The one to the left was the Mirror of the Future, and the one to the right was the Mirror of the Past.

Though she could see just as well as anyone, she was currently sitting in front of the Mirror of the Present with a navy blue blindfold over her eyes. It was an instrument that allowed her to see into the future and detect the injustices of the world. It was a constant watch duty. She had to keep watch not just for injustices that needed her judgment, but for changes in the flow of time, and anomalies in the current of the nature of things that needed her intervention. It wasn't so much that she received unexpected visions from a higher power as she simply saw the flow of time and knew how something would turn out. As a watcher of time, justice, and the flow of nature, she knew nearly everything. Ideas like fate and destiny were nothing but illusions to her. She knew things before they happened, and she had been waiting for this moment. Her only son needed her wisdom again, and she was only too glad to give it.

"_I am here, my son. Just on time, as I would expect from you._"

"**I know you know what I'm contacting you for, but let me say it anyway.**" He sounded a little more confident in himself this time, something like awe mixed with disbelief underlying his tone. She sensed the doubt that clouded his judgment still lingered, preventing him from being the death god of justice and fate that she knew he could be. "**This... Beauty you mentioned... she wouldn't happen to be the girl that Soul saved today…**"

_"I think your powers as a Shinigami and a god of justice and fate have already told you thus, little Death._" She replied, a smile in her tone. Her physical voice was fading along with her appearance, so whatever reply she gave was more of a telepathic answer than one of actual sound, for over the years her human appearance and the sound of her voice had become an illusion. "_As I have advised you before, trust yourself. You already know the answer to most of your own troubles, but your doubt and earthly attachments poison your energy and in turn weaken your abilities. You will never be at full power if you let this belief that there is such a thing as impossibility rule your thoughts."_

"**I know, I know... but** **I'm not as powerful as you, mother.** **And besides that... I've tried to do that, but beyond this girl's face, I can see nothing, not even her past. It's almost as if she exists outside of the higher order of things, and can I tell you how scary that is just to think about? The kind of power one could wield if such a thing were possible... Can... can you see beyond her present, mother?**"

She knew exactly how he felt. He was experiencing a limit to his abilities, leaving him a point of view at an almost human level. But even humans could sense a little into the future, even if they didn't know it. This girl was a living impossibility that even she found herself in confusion. But she was far too old to let such a thing keep her concern longer than it needed to. She may be the only being in the world that could see anything past the present of this girl, for she too existed outside of the higher order of things, an inescapable power that governed even fate itself.

"_You forget, my child. I have become far too old now to still exist within the higher order. Most divinities retire before they are cast out, but I am one of the few who still yet stay. The only reason I continue to stubbornly remain is because I still have things to do here. So yes, I can indeed see past the present and into this girl's future and past._"

"**What do you see?**" He asked, his young voice filled with childish wonder and hope.

"_Wouldn't that be telling?_" She replied heartily, the wisdom in her voice cutting off his immature earthly beliefs.

Her words made him hesitate, but he continued on with the need to know as Humans and those astral entities tied to the earth have taught him to. His time on the lower levels of the world was tainting his divine aura, but it was only because he was so young. He would learn better in time. "**Well, yes, but... Well, I don't need to know every detail. I understand and remember what we talked about. Asking for details is asking to be spoon-fed information that if gained by oneself can teach one experience that one would miss if spoon-fed instead. But... can you at least tell me the important things? I need to know if all my work on the daemon was not in vain.**"

"_Be at ease, dearest son of mine. It will turn out alright in the end. Even when things get rough and your faith is shaken, just trust that it will be alright. The daemon still needs you. He will come back when he is ready. As for the girl, she will give him what you have been struggling to provide. She will give him things that you could never provide. Now that they have been connected, they share a bond that should not be broken, for both of their sakes. Do not fret, for when temptation is highest and the shadows threaten to corrupt, he will not betray those closest to him._"

She knew he wasn't done or convinced as he took a moment to ponder at her words. "**Am... am I close to him?**"

"_Does he consider you a friend?_"

"**I think so...**"

"_Then you have naught to worry for._"

That made him go silent for a moment, and if she didn't know better, she wouldn't have known he was still there, but she could practically hear him thinking. "**...A girl so ordinary... turns out to be so ultra extraordinary... How is such a thing possible? Was she chosen somehow? Maybe touched by some unknown force**-"

"_To be more precise,_" she interrupted him, "_It's more like the Lady Hecate's position. She is a goddess who is unbound by neither the void of darkness nor the purity of the light. She exists in between, and as such her powers nearly overshadow mine. She would be above me in power if I were not a goddess of the law of nature, which rivals that of the between. This girl exists within the boundaries of the higher order. It is more like she is blessed with an ability, a power above all others, that exists beyond it._"

"**That still doesn't explain how it's even possible. How could such an ordinary girl be in possession of something so exalted?**"

"_She did not come across it. She was born with it. She is purely an accident, but nothing is impossible if it is meant to be._"

"**Meant to be...?**" And suddenly he seemed to start to catch on somewhat. "**You mean she was chosen by the higher order for something, maybe as a mediator or a peace keeper for something catastrophic that is going to happen soon.**"

"_Yes, something like that._"

It in fact when much deeper than that. This extraordinary girl was just that, an ordinary girl of extra special proportions. It was not just that she was meant to be what she was, it was that she herself had chosen to become what she was. The consciousness of the universe that gives a piece of itself to everything it creates always lets life itself chose what it wants to be before it is even conceived. Every life form has this choice, but it can also choose to let the universe choose for it. Every now and then, however, there is one life form that the universe creates for a special purpose, and that life form allows itself to be created as such, and on certain occasions, when that life form does not want that purpose, its choice is overridden if the need for that purpose is too great.

In this case, the universe wanted the girl to be extraordinary, but the girl wanted to be ordinary, and so they were able to come to the agreement to make her both. In other words, there was no real rhyme or reason. The girl just was.

"**Uh, one more thing that's been bugging me.**"

She knew what he meant. He had been troubled about her last words to him for the past few nights. "_Is it so inappropriate for a mother to tell her only son she loves him?_"

"**No, in fact I appreciate it, but it makes me wonder. You've** **never had to speak the words out loud to me before, which means something is either happening or going to happen, something big. What's going on, mother?**"

She had to be proud of him. He was still so very young for a godling, only a few hundred years had he been in existence, and yet during that time he had amazed her with stunning displays of power throughout his growth. This was no exception. He had picked up on the fact that she had spoken her love for him aloud and that there was a good reason for it. Any of her other children at his age would have passed it off as a few simple words. A godling his age and younger was always more human than the humans themselves were in the beginning. It was only as they grew older and learned to utilize their power to its full potential that they began to bloom into the powerful divinities that they were. Her little Death, despite his young age and his lingering immaturity, was already showing early signs of blossoming. How could she not be so proud of him? He was going to be a god of such power one day.

"_Nothing for you to worry about, little Death. Maybe you should meet this girl that seems so 'ultra' extraordinary. She may be able to absolve a few of your doubts._"

It was no lie, but the truth was that she was hiding from him something important. It was a day that she had ages ago foreseen soon to come to pass, a day in divine life that was about to go to hell, and every godly entity would be in turmoil. It would be a time where her support would be sought endlessly, and she would need to be the rock stubbornly stuck in the soil that tied everything together, just as she had when the first world she was born into had experienced a great and incredibly volatile war, a war between the gods and the titans. This would be one fallen god against the few weakened ones that remained, and only she knew the end result. For this reason, it was a good thing that the girl just happened to exist. What a funny thing fate was. It was something that her son would discover in time, but it was not yet time for him to know.

He was smart enough now that he knew better than to argue with her answers, no matter how vague or frustrating. "**Of course, mother. I understand. Perhaps I'll take you up on your suggestion. Forgive me for disturbing your busy day.**"

"_My days are always busy, but there is always time for my only son. Stay strong, my dearest one._"

With that, he said a respectable good night to her in both Japanese and Ancient Greek, which she replied to in both languages before they cut off their connection. She knew he was dissatisfied with the answers she had given him, but as he always did, he would find that he could trust in her wisdom. The cryptic responses she always gave out were for the good of the nature of things, which helped the higher order stay in balance. He understood this to an extent, but he did not know the full aspect of it. He would soon enough. Once he was old enough, despite that she already had a potential successor, he might just inherit not only his father's position as god of death and the underworld, but hers of fate and justice as well...

* * *

After returning home from the hospital was the week she slept the best of the last few months.

It felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, a weight that she had been hauling around for far too long. In fact, even though that day was a holiday from school that she had to work, she was not unhappy. Actually, she was very excited to get to work. It was a big Barnes & Noble store that was a good mile away from her apartment complex, and she was on the cash register today. Normally she would have rode her bike, but today was such a good day that she couldn't pass up the opportunity to walk, enjoying the cool breeze of the early morning. She got up extra early just to do so.

Jerry, her boss, was looking very surprised to see her so lively. Even though she was an early bird by nature, she was normally still in need of caffeine tea to wake her up, but she came in without the need, as though she had already had about three cups of it.

"Are you... feeling alright, there, Albarn?" He asked her as she walked through the door with some pep in her step. "You seem... happy."

"Of course I am! Is that a bad thing?" She turned to him after signing in for work with a grin that was bigger than her usual one.

"No, you just seem... almost enthusiastic about coming in today," he replied, watching as she went about putting on the female employee's work outfit that fit over a person's casual attire, "Last week you were griping about working on a holiday. Did something happen that I should know about?"

"I've just been feeling really good this week, I don't know what's come over me!" She lied. She knew exactly what the reason was, but it was not something she went around blurting out. The best part about just coming out of a relapse was the fact that no astral entities –except for Blair– bothered her for about seven days. It was the sixth, so she was enjoying the normalcy while she could.

Jerry just shook his head and sighed as he watched her go about her business. "Don't forget to-"

"I know! Check the registers and make sure the Starbucks is on schedule. Already on it!" She called back, then left him standing there as she hurried to do just as she had said. First she needed to check the registers for any forgotten coins or dollar bills, then be sure that they were clean and working properly, and after that, she skipped –yes, skipped, even she couldn't quite get over it– over to the Starbucks that was located front and center at the left-hand side of the store like a bar, only it served things like coffee instead of tequila or some such.

It was in that store that a good friend from school (a grade lower than she and a year older) was working, and as soon as he saw her skipping toward the counter, he raised a brow from under his visor –an expensive device that was meant to shade his incredibly light sensitive eyes from harsh light– and cocked a sideways smirk at her. "Well, well, look whose skipping into the Starbucks, and I do mean skipping! What's up with you, Maka? Did something fantastic happen to you after you came back from the hospital?" He stopped his excessive cleaning of the coffee bar to come and greet her from behind the counter.

"Hey, Harvar!" She greeted him cheerily as she met him from across the counter. "I'm guessing Kim spread the word about my little... adventure?"

The fact that he actually smiled at her would make anyone who first met him shit a brick. Other than the tough macho bodyguard act he always put up, thinking it his duty to protect Ox from anyone who would pick on him as his best friend, no one except good friends ever saw the other side of him, the easy-going friendly Harvar, as she among very few were privileged. He was a guy who was used to winning fights with strength that could send even Marcus running to save his hide, which was one huge reason she greatly valued her friendship with him. He would never hesitate to protect her as he did Ox or any of his other friends if they needed him. Not only that, but he believed that she could really see things, so that was a serious bonus. Another part of it was that he treated her kind of like she was his little sister, which she happened to enjoy a lot. She had been born an only child so she enjoyed having someone aside from Tsubaki to play family with.

He actually erupted into laughter at her play on words. "Adventure? If you can call it that. But yeah, Kim told Ox who told me. So... there was a _boy_, and he _saved_ you. Does this have anything to do with your _good mood_ right now?" She was sure that if he could look at her without the visor, there would be a gleam in his eyes that spoke of an expectation for romance that might possibly lead to... other things. It was already implied in the tone of his voice and the way he tilted his head to one side, making the light gleam off his light olive skin, which in turn made the highlights in his brown-black hair, always pulled into a very short pony tail at the top of his head (she almost never saw it otherwise), sparkle red across his scalp.

Any other day and she might have maka chopped him for such a comment, but she was in such a good mood that she actually giggled at him and let it slide. "You know exactly why, Harvar. You know how I see things and stuff?"

"Yeah?" He nodded, continuing his cleaning as he listened, stopping every now and then to look at her and let her know that she was being heard.

"And you know about my last relapse that scared everyone shitless?"

"How could I forget that story?" He stopped for a brief moment to toss a hand out as though making a point. "It scared me just listening to it. I was afraid to talk to you or even be near you for like five days before Ox managed to convince me that it wasn't going to happen again."

Her happiness faded for a moment at the memories of being shunned by him for what had happened that day, but it came back upon remembering that he was still her friend even after the incident. "Well, it's because whenever I have a relapse, I come out of it with a fresh start. I feel good as new, and I get no 'unexpected visitors' for a good week. It's been great! I forgot how free it feels to be normal for a change!"

"Free?" His eyebrows furrowed for a moment as if that word was not quite the same one he would have used. "Well... I think I know what you mean. I don't know what you and Ox are always going through, but I know that it would bug the hell out of me if I had to live with it."

"And there you have it!" She chirped to him happily, throwing her arms out to either side to emphasize her point, then clasping her hands behind her back as if her job here was done.

He finished his routine cleaning and paused in his work to lean on the counter again, looking at her with raised brows as though expecting a different story. "So? What was he like? I've known you for three years; you don't get swept off your feet by anyone. And then comes along this stud and suddenly you can't stop talking about him. And don't play it off like it's not true, Tsubaki doesn't lie, especially about something like this."

Her happiness faded for a moment and she looked at him with confusion. "What are you talking about? It's not like that. He... isn't really... human, anyway."

"And? There are no rules saying that you can't fall in love with a ghost or whatever it is that you're always seeing." He smirked at her again, almost knowingly.

The way he said it made her blush with embarrassment at the prospect, and she couldn't stop it from coming, which probably told him otherwise. "What?! No, Harvar, I'm not in love with the guy. It's nothing like that. He's really not even that good looking. He just saved me and I'm thankful, and I never got to tell him, that's all."

"Uh-huh. Real believable, Maka." His eyebrows did a furrow and then one raised, and she could hear the accusation in his tone as he came out from behind the counter to clean the tables and the chairs.

She stared after him, almost unable to believe that he'd really said that, then glared and growled. "You-! You just ruined my good mood, dammit! You always have to spoil it for me, don't you?!"

"Who said anything about that?" He stopped and looked at her with a smirk. "Don't you have registers to work at? It's almost time to open up. I already know why you're here, so tell Jerry I'm on it." He then went back to work.

She growled again and an idea sparked within her mind. It was a cruel thing to do, but she felt that he had it coming. She went behind the counter like she was getting herself something, grabbed a coffee cup and filled it with hot mocha, then came back out and, without a second thought, dumped the mocha all over a table and tossed the empty cup on the floor. "Oopsies! I sure didn't mean that. Sorry, Harvie!"

Harvar looked up just in time to see her commit the crime, almost sensing that she had ill intentions, and there was no time for him to stop her. "No... Maka...!" All he could do was helplessly look on as the dark steaming liquid waterfalled onto the table and rivered down the sides, spilling onto the floor and chairs that he had just finished cleaning off. It continued to trickle on toward him, as if her will to get back at him was directing its flow. He turned to her with an angry expression as he rushed to clean up the mess she had just made for him. "What the hell did you do that for?! I was only teasing, for fuck's sake! Damn... I just cleaned this up." And he went to work on it immediately.

She started to feel a bit better again, though she wasn't entirely sure what possessed her. She smiled at him and reclaimed her prior happiness that he had seemed to zap away from her with his needless teasing. "Sorry. Not sure what came over me."

He just looked up at her with a look that spoke of confusion mixed with agitation. "What the hell does that mean? What is up with the sudden mood swing? I mean, I know you had a rough day last week and all, but does it really call for this kind of shit?"

"Yeah, that was pretty uncalled for." Said a voice from behind, a voice that to Maka sounded eerily familiar.

It took her a moment to realize who it was by his voice alone, and once she did, her eyes widened in shock. She had begun to think she would never see him again, but as she turned to look at who had spoken, she recognized those blood red eyes that always sent a cold chill through her every time she saw them. It was him.

As she silently stared at him, he looked at the mess she had made and walked over to Harvar, grabbing a few napkins as he did. "Here, let me help." He then began to wipe up the hot mocha.

Harvar was not as surprised as she was to see him. "Thanks, man." And he began the job of cleaning up the mess.

Maka just watched them work, unable to believe who was right in front of her and actually helping one of her best friends. It didn't occur to her to help them until Harvar looked up at her with a very annoyed look on his face.

"Well? Are you going to help or what? You made this mess, you could at least help me clean it up instead of just standing there letting us do all the work."

At his words, a wave of guilt crashed over her and she flinched at the sharp tone in his voice. "R-right." With that, she got on her knees and helped out, all the while trying to figure out what the hell made her do such a thing to someone so close to her. At one point, she was so out of it and trying to avoid Harvar's gaze that she bumped hands with her savior, but after a quick apology, she cleaned in the opposite direction, avoiding him as well. She really hoped that he hadn't been standing behind her for the entire event and seen and heard everything.

By the time they were finally done, it looked like there had never been a mess in the first place. But the fact that it was clean again didn't make Maka feel any better about it. She was glad she had listened to Harvar telling her to help, for she would have felt worse if she didn't, but she still felt ashamed for her actions.

Harvar then turned to them, his smile back on his face. "Thanks for the help, guys. I appreciate it."

"Meh, just seemed like the right thing to do." The red-eyed boy said with a shrug. He then looked at Maka almost expectantly, and when he couldn't catch her down cast gaze, he turned to her and said something that made her feel even worse. "Shouldn't you be apologizing?"

She cringed, the feeling of a huge bolt of lightning striking her as guilt split her heart into pieces. She knew what she'd done, she knew she was wrong to have done it, and she knew that Harvar had not truly deserved it. So why was she still resisting?

"I'm waiting." Harvar said, his calmer tone returning. Though she couldn't meet his visor, she knew that he was looking at her. He stood there waiting for her for a good minute, but for whatever reason, she couldn't get the words out no matter how she wanted to tell him she was sorry. And after that minute passed, he put his hands on her shoulders and attempted to ease the tension. "Hey, you had a hard day last week. I know visits to the hospital are not your favorite thing, and I'm sorry for giving you a hard time on your first day back to work."

"Don't." It worked. The fact that he was apologizing to her triggered something in her that released her locked lips and allowed her to finally set things right, giving her the courage she needed to finally be able to meet his censured gaze. "I'm the one who should be saying I'm sorry. I don't know what that was. It didn't even feel like me. Why would I do something like that to someone who has been so kind to me? Who could forgive me for... something that almost chased him away forever..." Just thinking about it cut her surge of courage short. Losing any one of her friends was something that didn't just scare her, it was a thought that she couldn't think much on lest it be the end of her.

But Harvar didn't miss his cue. He gave her shoulders a light squeeze and smiled at her with such gentleness that he would only give to someone like Ox who was close to him. "You are forgiven!" He let go of her and turned to the red-eyed stranger who had walked in so unexpectedly. "So! I gather by the way she looked at you that you two know each other?" When he got a nod, he turned to Maka. "Gonna introduce me or what?"

"Oh, right..." She paused at the idea that she actually knew him, and as she turned to make the intro, she realized that she actually did know him, but not in the more common way. "Harvar, this is Soul Eater Evans, the one who saved me last week. Soul, this is Harvar D. Éclair, a very good friend of mine."

"...Sup?" Was all Soul could seem to think of to say as Harvar looked at him with a curious smile and held out a hand, which was accepted with a little hesitation.

"So it was you?" Said Harvar, apparently the one who was better able to start a conversation. "It's quite a pleasure, Mister Rescuer. Interesting that we meet under these circumstances, but I'm sure not complaining. Thanks for saving her, by the way. I heard it was quite a feat that you pulled off. I only wish I could have been there to see it."

"It wasn't that amazing really..." Soul replied as his hand was released, and it looked for a moment like he wasn't quite sure what to make of Harvar.

Harvar just shrugged. "Just repeating what I heard." He turned to check his wrist watch for the time, and grimaced, as though they might be running late. "Anyway, we're about to start work in a few seconds. If you can wait until lunch time, around noon, then you're free to stick around. Just for saving Maka, I'll give you whatever you want from Starbucks free today. Otherwise you can always go and come back."

"Is there Manga?" Soul asked.

"This is Barnes & Noble, of course there is Manga." Harvar replied with a sweep of his arm to indicate the shelves upon shelves of books.

"Then I'll stick around." And with that, his red eyes lingered on Maka before he disappeared into the books.

Maka watched him go, unable to take her fern green gaze from him even after he was no longer in her field of vision. It took a call from Jerry to get her back on track, and she hurried up to the registers before the flurry of waiting customers was finally unleashed into the store.

* * *

**Ok so I didn't get a chance to enter any of my actual ideas, but I will next chapter, and I think the next chapter will come a lot sooner than this one did. At least I hope it does. **

**I've gone over this chapter once already, but I will still end up making more editing and adding later, so re-read and stuff if you need to be refreshed on things. I know the first half was a little c on fusing with the "is she meant to be or isn't she?" but that's pretty much up to you individually to decide. And forgive the totally different personality I gave Harvar. Not sure why I made him so.... out-going... kinda reminds me a little of Sokka from avatar now that I think about it O.o.... but I gave a good explanation so its cool, right?  
**

**Anyway, I need to figure out what's happening in the next chapter, so laters.  
**


	7. Chapter 5: A Chance at Destiny's Beckon

***EDIT:**** Did some serious editing to this chapter, just now. You should check it out, I added stuff and I fixed things that make it not only flow better but more interesting.**

**Aaaaaaaand here is another chapter to keep you happy. Much more to look forward to, and a huge story to tell you a lot more about Maka's own past. Nothing about Wes-kun or Spirit-san yet, but I think Wes might show up next chapter. We'll see. For now, explanations galore and more Maka and Soul time, as requested. Maybe not as much as you would like, but definitely more interactive than last chapter.**

**Anyway, let's just see what I can cook up next.

* * *

**

**Chapter 5**

He'd been waiting by the subway for her all night, nothing better to do, until he saw her coming, and enter the book store. He would have waited longer but his curiosity got the best of him. He wasn't quite sure how it happened. Something in him, some sort of lingering morality that he still had left, compelled him to show himself and help make it right, realizing that he had the power to do so, and now he was looking for Manga. What was morality again?

Once he picked out a nice selection and returned to the Starbucks to read them, he found that the Manga couldn't hold his interest. It was her he was interested in.

Every time he tried to read, he found himself looking up and watching her, fascinated by the fact that she could be so normal and yet be so abnormal at the same time. She treated each customer with a smile, helping out where she could with such patience when a customer needed something other than buying a book, and when she was alone at the register she kept herself busy by checking the products and counting the money. Just a regular girl who worked in a Barnes & Noble store.

Yet beneath the exterior appearance, he knew there was so much more to her than could ever be measured. He had to wonder why no dark entities had come to claim her yet with the power she probably wielded. How could they not know or sense her? How did he not sense her? Perhaps she was guarded somehow, but then how could so many entities be drawn to her? He wanted to know more...

"I have to admit, Soul, you didn't strike me as the stalker type when we first said hello." Harvar interrupted his thoughts as he came and set a cup down beside him. "One hot cinnamon chocolate latte, free on the house."

"Thanks... I think..." He took the latte and took a small sip, savoring the taste of it on his tongue and the heat as it warmed him from inside going down. He let out a sigh of pleasure and took a swig, then looked up at the boy with a visor over his eyes. "What do you mean, stalker?"

Harvar gave him a half smirk as if he knew better. "Don't give me that, you've been watching her the whole time you've been sitting here. I've had my eye on you all morning. Maka's never been taken by anyone, so whatever thoughts your having are meaningless. And keep your eyes open, 'cause I'm one of those standing guard."

Soul gazed at him, wondering just how close he and Maka were and if what he was saying was true, and he remembered what he said about Maka always talking about him. He had been there, invisible, for most of the conversation, waiting for her to sense him and turn around to see him as she had the day they had so randomly passed each other by, but she had not. He knew that she had been refreshed after the relapse she'd suffered in his arms –a memory of her that he would really forget– so it may be that she not as engrossed in the astral plane as she had been when they first saw each other. She did say seven days before she saw things again after all…

"By the way," Harvar said as he signaled for a fellow co-worker to temporarily take over for him so that he could sit down and talk to Soul, "Don't freak out if she seems to hallucinate or anything. It's just the way she is."

"I already know about that." Soul replied. If Harvar already knew about her abilities, then discussing it with him might yield information that could be useful. "So... what kinds of things does she see?"

He shrugged. "Other than Maka herself, there's only one person that can answer that question for you, and his name is Franken Stein."

Soul blinked as he recognized the name. "...Frankenstein...? As in...?"

"We like to think so," Harvar grinned mischievously, resting his chin in one hand as he spoke, "The other students make fun of him for it and he actually is kind of like the mad scientist from the movie, but he's a cool guy and a good science teacher. Tends to go a little overboard with the dissections in biology class... but we learn things, so it's all good. He's a childhood friend of her father so she grew up with him. He's like her uncle or second father or something like that."

Soul's mind almost reeled with the realization that Maka was young enough that she must still be in school. He'd been out of the loop for so long that he'd almost forgotten how the real world worked. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that of course she was in high school. She looked like she could be a student. "So you go to the same school that she does?"

"Yep! She's only 17 and already a Senior, can you believe that? She skipped almost two grades all by herself! She studies and works way too hard, but it's getting her where she wants to go, I'll give her that." His expression changed to one of regret and envy, like he wished he could have Maka's same incentive to work hard and succeed. "Here I am, an 18-year-old Junior who got held back somewhere in grade school because I picked one too many fights and failed more classes than I could afford. I dunno how she does it, but whatever she's on that makes her keep going, I want some!"

"I believe its called courage and hope," Soul said calmly, another sip taking his latte down to just less than two-thirds of the coffee cup, "She... doesn't seem to let fear or despair affect her, at least not for long. She's almost immune to it actually, or at least that I've seen of her so far."

Harvar looked at him with a more somber expression. "I dunno... the story of how she went crazy might just make you rethink that."

Soul noticed something flash in the other boy's face, and suddenly he realized that Harvar meant the word 'crazy' seriously. Something popped into his thoughts and he remembered something that had been floating around in Maka's mind at the time when he had been forced to invade it to save her. "...What happened?"

Harvar relaxed in his chair, not even bothering to look around in case anyone was listening, most likely because the story was already well known by everyone. "This is just what I was told, but she and a few friends were spending the night in a hotel near Seaworld for a week as a field trip for marine biology. They got to do all kinds of stuff there that I envy them for... but anyway, this hotel is accused of being haunted. It was built over the sight of an ancient psychiatric hospital, a place where some seriously gruesome shit happened. Now mind you, although she's the picture of health, Maka was already feeling a bit ill that night, but she started to feel even worse. She and my best friend Ox who went with her told me that they could sense an intense spiritual restlessness there, like thousands of tormented souls that were never laid to rest. Yes, Ox can see things too, just not like Maka, her ability is almost insane..."

That sparked Soul's curiosity. "How insane?"

"Well, Mr. Stein says she's pretty much the most powerful median he's ever met." Harvar obliged.

"I see..." Soul took a moment to think it over, storing it in his memory for later, then gestured for Harvar to continue. "So what then?"

He was only too happy to continue. "So the idiot Black*Star, who doesn't even believe in ghosts, decides that he is going to set these spirits straight and went to go tell them off, as is the Black*Star way, and he was followed by a few other people, including Maka and Tsubaki, who wanted to make sure he didn't get lost or into trouble or something. They found a secret underground basement, and of course Black*Star goes inside, declaring that darkness equals evil demons and he will be the light that shines in the dark, blah blah blah, his usual rantings about how great he is. Before they even reach the end of this maze of a basement, both Maka and Ox feel a dark presence, like all of a sudden this spirit thing's got beef 'cause they're in its hood. They both freak out, but its Maka who gets… 'possessed' or whatever it was that happened. Probably a relapse of hers, or at least that's what she told us. Anyhoo, so that's when she lost it."

"...And what do you mean by 'lost it'?" Soul already knew the meaning, but he wanted a more detailed explanation. He knew there was more to it than that.

"Lost control, lost her sanity, lost her marbles, whatever you wanna call it, she lost it." Harvar replied, leaning forward in his seat again, recalling what was said to him. "She froze for like a minute with this terrified look on her face, like she was in the grip of something that was attacking her. Ox even said he thought her eyes were glowing when it happened. And then she let out a piercing scream, curled up into a ball, and the next time someone touched her, she started laughing about nothing, and ranting about random things that didn't make sense. Then she went into crazy mode and started attacking people like it was a game."

Something about that reminded him with a chill of Patty and her frenzied games, but it made him think more of himself than the younger Thompson sister. "...That... is pretty creepy..."

Harvar became a bit distant as he recalled what he had been told, trying to imagine for himself what it must've been like for those who experienced it. "Ox told me she had this distorted look on her face, a crooked smile, one eye twitching and wide open and the other drooping, and her face would contort with every expression, and there was a gleam in her eye that scared the piss out of everyone. They tell me she became a regular Freddy. She almost killed people. They were actually forced to lock her in the damn basement for the rest of the night, and when they came back to check on her she was passed out and bloody, like she'd turned on herself after losing someone to pick on, or tried to battle whatever was in her and get it out."

Soul took a moment to take it all in, and only one reason remained in his mind. "You really think it was possession?"

Harvar shrugged, unable to answer for sure. "Everyone avoided her and she ended up rooming by herself the rest of the week, and even after that everyone continued to avoid her. Eventually we started to get over it, but she was pretty alone for a while, and she got picked on even more for that incident. I think Tsubaki was the only one who forgave her immediately after, but Black*Star wouldn't let her see Maka for a good two months after the fact. Tsubaki had to forcefully break up with him to get him to understand that he was being not just controlling but a paranoid 'stupidhead' as she put it, but they got back together pretty soon afterward."

Soul didn't respond. He knew exactly what must've happened. When a bunch of people are gathered into one place and tortured until they died in such horrible ways, their spirits refuse to move on, and the negative energy of their pain, anger, and grief that collects there over time creates a malicious beast, a dark entity that could very easily be classified as a demon. This demon then rules the roost, so to speak, and anyone who enters its lair pays the price. It just so happened that there were two people who invaded its domain who could sense it, and it of course chose the more powerful of the two, because the more power a median has, the more vulnerable they become. And so Maka was subjected to possession, and by the sound of things, it had been a very traumatic experience for her and those involved.

"I was pretty pissed that she turned on her friends and attacked Ox like that," Harvar went on, his expression changing to explain his moods as he spoke of them, "and I was scared she would do it again, until Ox convinced me that it was ok. I wonder what the hell happened to make her do something like that?"

A sudden surge of the instinct to protect, something he never knew he still had, crashed through him as he processed the story, analyzed it, and came up with a synopsis. He wasn't sure how he could still have any trace of humanity or morality still in him, but there it was, somehow triggered by this curious girl, almost like he was meant to be her protector. "I can answer that question."

The way Harvar looked at him, confused and skeptical and yet curious all in one, gave Soul the cue to go on.

"The place was filled with the spirits of dead people who suffered unbearably in life, and that negativity, depending on the amount and concentration of it in one place, can either attract dark spirits or create them. These entities feed on all that negativity and it makes them stronger until you can't stop them. The fact that they left her alone with the entity and came back to find her in such a state means that it and its spirit slaves had tortured her mercilessly all night long. It fucked with her head, it physically abused her –which very likely includes sexual assault– and it fed on the negativity that it created in her. In order words, it basically used her like a battery, but more for entertainment purposes than making itself stronger. Eventually she probably tried to maim herself to make it end, either to keep her mind off the mental pain or to try to fight it and get it out of herself in vain."

As he spoke, Harvar's face kept switching between horror and disbelief, like he wasn't quite sure he wanted to believe such a thing could have happened, especially to someone he was so closed to. And yet as he listened, realizing that Soul knew what he was talking about, he had to question his own dignity. "How... how can you know all that? How can you be sure?"

"Because it's one of my fields of expertise," was Soul's response before he continued on, eagerly hoping that Harvar would pass this story along as readily as he had the other one, "She has incredible sensitivity that gives her great power, but with it comes a great vulnerability, and that vulnerability can easily be taken advantage of. It probably caused a relapse in the midst of all the activity, but in the end, that was probably what saved her. Any other scenario involving being left to the clutches of such an entity for so long without relief would have yielded a corpse, not an unconscious girl with injuries that aren't fatal. I know the friends that went with her didn't know all this and all, but they basically saved their own hides and left her to die, and then they came back to get her and exiled her from society for something that was not her fault. Makes you wonder how she's still able to smile, but I don't think she knows or even remembers exactly what happened to her."

After hearing himself speak, it left him wondering just how she was able to endure that night of hell, and just when she had finally lost consciousness because of it. How long had she suffered for? And afterward she was subjected to abandonment, which must've been a torment even greater than being left to the clutches of a malicious entity, especially because it was not her fault and she probably didn't even remember what really happened. If anyone could have survived with their sanity still intact, she was the only one he knew of.

As he was processing the story, Harvar began asking Soul some serious questions –probably to take his own mind off it so he could brood on it later when he wasn't working– such as where he came from, why he was here, and what his goals and intentions were. Soul answered as truthfully as he dared, but not everything was the complete truth. He was hardly from this day and age, so how could he be totally honest, especially with someone who didn't actually know what he was? Even though Maka had told him that Soul was not human, he made no effort to ask, which was not all that surprising. Humans had a natural fear of the unknown and supernatural things, the same as animals had a natural fear of humans or predators. It was a built in safety mechanism that was hard to ignore.

As the interrogation came to an end, Harvar was forced to go back to work, leaving Soul to do as he pleased. After that, it wasn't long before noon rolled around. As Maka approached the table he was sitting at, Harvar actually kept his distance, as if giving them space to talk by themselves, even though he kept a close watch on them at the same time. Soul almost wondered what his intentions were, but as the girl went to order something from the coffeehouse, his concern over Harvar melted away, and his mind automatically singled her out as he watched her go about her business.

She bought a cold vanilla mousse coffee and a melon mix smoothie before she even sat down, looking a bit overwhelmed after working from 6 in the morning to midday. Neither of them spoke as he watched her chug the coffee down in probably about three gulps, suffer through a seriously massive brain freeze attack as a result, and then very slowly start on her smoothie. He raised a brow at her quizzically, and without the need for him to say anything, she replied to it with a shrug and a sheepish grin.

As Harvar walked by, delivering a 6-inch subway sandwich that Maka had requested, he leaned over and whispered something in her ear, and Soul caught bits and pieces of something about a conversation starter. He stared after the other boy with a confused look of inquiry, but Harvar just gave him a thumbs up and continued walking away. Soul contained the urge to roll his eyes.

"Don't worry about him," Maka said, shooting Harvar a mock glare, "He's just playing the part of overprotective elder brother."

"I noticed," Soul replied, "He's already hit me with a fifty question quiz about me and my life and threatened to kill me if I ever broke your heart."

She laughed lightly at that, recognizing it for the joke it was supposed to be, for which he was grateful. "That sounds like Harvie, alright. I'm sorry about him."

"Doesn't matter. He's just trying to protect you." He was surprised that the little demon in his head had nothing to say about any of this, which made him wonder and worry what evil plans it was cooking up now. Its silence was never a good sign. But for now, he decided to enjoy the silence, as eerie and unwelcoming as it was, and try to be normal for a change.

She smiled at him, appreciative of his tolerance and patience, and then told him she'd be right back. He watched her get up to get a spoon and use it to eat the top of the smoothie, and as she did, he began to wonder just what had gone through her mind the night she'd been possessed. Should he ask her, or was that getting too personal too soon? It would probably be best to wait for her to say something first, but if he did that, they might never talk about it. From the way Harvar had told him the story, it sounded like something that she might not want to talk about at all, a secret that she kept hidden –like her ability– to protect herself from those who would shun and abandon her if they knew. It was right as he was thinking this that she said something that took him by surprise.

"So... I never did get to thank you, did I?"

For a moment he just stared at her blankly. Then he realized what she was talking about and sat there gapping, wondering how she could thank him after he had violated her mind. Though she had violated him first, it had been purely by accident. There was no way she had full control of her power yet. He had chosen to invade hers of his own accord, which was more of a crime than doing so without meaning to.

When he didn't say anything, she took it to mean that she was supposed to continue with what she had started to say. "Well... uhm... Thank you. I don't know what you did exactly, but it saved me. I'm sorry that my friends so rudely dragged me away, otherwise I would have said it then." She gave him a smile so sweet it was almost nauseating, and because it had been his fault that she'd had the relapse, it made him feel even sicker. The one thing that made it even worse was knowing that he was not the first to mind rape her. "By the way..." she said suddenly, "before we were separated, you apologized to me. I still don't understand why."

He continued to gaze at her, knowing full well that she was expecting an answer now. He wasn't sure he had it in him to tell her, but something in him felt that she was someone he couldn't lie to. As she sat there looking at him expectantly, he found that as he began to form the words, he couldn't look her in the eye and say it at the same time. So he cast his gaze downward as he very reluctantly began to tell her exactly what had happened, hesitantly at first, but eventually it just poured out as though it were natural.

She listened with wide-eyed interest as he explained to her in detail why her relapses happened, and as he told her how she had accidentally tapped into his mind (specifically leaving out the part about the demon his mind), she looked a little ashamed, as though she were the one at fault. He reassured her that was not the case, and once she began to accept that, he went on to tell her how he had invaded her mind in order to save her. "...You actually were dying, but all I had to do was suggest to you that you weren't. The power of thought, if used correctly, is a very potent ability that everyone has. What you perceive is your reality, and once you realize that and the fact that there is no singular reality, you'll achieve power that can warp your life into what you want it to be, and I'm not talking about lying. I'm talking about believing."

"I had no idea…" She replied once he was finished. "I don't know if I could have figured that out by myself. I probably never would have known... So you really did save my life! There is no need to be sorry for that. You did what you had to, right?"

"…I guess…" Somehow, he was not surprised at how easily she forgave his crime. It still didn't make him feel any better, but he was glad that she did not even slightly grow angry or irritated with him.

"You guess? Don't be so hard on yourself, silly. No real harm done, after all!" And she flashed him her gentle smile, the one that made him feel more comfortable in her presence. He knew that she was right, but there was just one part inside of him that refused to let it go. And then she asked him something else that surprised him, a rather bold inquiry truth be told. "So... you're not human right? What are you exactly?"

It wasn't so much that he didn't know how to answer as he didn't know if he wanted to answer or not. What would she think if she knew he was a daemon? She already knew that he was not human, which he guessed that she had known since the beginning considering she saw him when her friend didn't. What other questions would she want to ask him, and how many of them would he be able to answer? He wasn't sure she needed to know about the voice in his head, or about the Shinigami that kept him as a servant. She certainly didn't need to know about his past. If she knew that, she might shun him. He wasn't sure why he cared about that so much, but suddenly he felt like she was the one thing holding him together. Well, considering what was more important that she didn't know, the least he could do was tell her what he was.

"...Do you know what a daemon is?"

"Uh... demon?" He realized his mistake by the look on her face. The way he pronounced it made it sound like he meant the evil beings from Christian myth that were the opposite of angels, and she didn't seem to be very happy with the idea.

It was an easy correction however. "Not the kind that you're thinking of. I'm not here to raise hell or anything. I am a D-A-E-M-O-N, sometimes spelled D-A-I-M-O-N. Pronunciation is debatable, so just for the sake of telling the difference, let's go with day-mon."

"Ok, so... What is a... day-mon?" She asked hesitantly. She seemed more comfortable with the idea that she had misunderstood him.

"It's the most powerful of the astral entities, a being between mortals and divinities and good and evil." Soul replied. He went to take another sip of his latte, only to be reminded that he had polished it off long ago. "They can be either good, usually referred to as a Eudaemon, or evil, Kakodaemons, but they are by definition a spirit that is less than divine with a more neutral nature. They normally go around acting like guardians of mortals, giving them sharper instincts than most, but they manipulate humans which is why things can go either good or bad. Usually a daemon is transmuted out of a mortal human, which can be done in a multitude of ways, mainly divine means, but there are those who are created through unnatural means, such as by a god to do the god's bidding."

"How were you created?" She looked at him with such curiosity in her big piercing fern green eyes that it almost creeped him out, and her question was one that he had been afraid of.

"Me?" He found it both gratifying and disturbing that she was so fascinated by what he had to say. Though her question was difficult to answer, he was able to give her the basic gist of it. "...I'm not exactly sure. I just know that I had to die to be reborn as what I am now."

As though noticing that her questions were getting too personal for him, she went silent and looked down at the melon smoothie that she only half drank, then pushed it away from herself and toward him as though offering it to him. "So? Which are you? Good or bad?"

That question, though it should have made him feel uncomfortable like her other ones, actually made him smile, which was something he had yet to do for weeks, months even. With a good vibe beating in his heart for the first time in a long time, he took the offered smoothie, tried it, decided he liked it, and began to work on making it disappear. "Depends."

"On what?" She seemed to take notice that his happy face was a rare treat, because she encouraged him with her own mischievous smirk.

"On how I feel." He humored her, keeping his answers vague to keep the game going.

"Soooooo... mad daemon equals evil, and happy daemon equals good?"

He wasn't sure where this good vibe had come from, maybe she had somehow triggered some small part of his humanity that still remained, but he wanted to enjoy it while he could, before the little demon in his mind took it away from him. "More like happy daemon equals evil and mad daemon equals mega kick-your-ass evil!"

She burst out laughing at his response. "So you're a vicious monster, are you?"

"No..." he pretended to be lying, then cocked his head to the side to look at her with a mischievous grin, "Unless you wanna see it that way."

Her grin widened. "Unless I decide you are?"

"Something like that." He shrugged and turned away again, mocking a know-it-all type of behavior.

She laughed again, enjoying his game of Q&A. They went on like that for another minute, and then got down to talking about more trivial everyday things for another thirty minutes, the smoothie finished long before that, until Harvar came by again and reminded her of the time.

She groaned and turned to Soul with a look of disappointment on her face. "I have to get back to work, and because there is no school today, I won't be done until about 5 in the evening, and after that I have to go home and study for this important test tomorrow, so unfortunately, we have to cut this meeting short. But I'll be available after school tomorrow at about 2:25 pm. Big test equals no homework and short day. Last day, too, so no studying either." She smiled at the idea of no homework or studying to worry about, but she still looked worn out about the testing and all the studying she would have to do.

"Well, dammit." Soul himself had to admit he too was disappointed that their day was over already, but he was glad that he could leave her on a better note than their last meeting. "So when and where do you wanna meet up, tomorrow, then?"

"Here is good, about 3:00pm. Gives me enough time to get ready and get here." She replied, glad to be given the chance to hang out with him again so soon.

And he shared her enthusiasm. "Alright, then I will see you again tomorrow."

"Definitely. Later!" And she threw all their trash away, waved to him, received a wave back, and raced back to the register.

When he was able to tear himself away from watching her again, he waved to Harvar, who waved back, and left the store. Deep in thought, more about how his behavior had totally changed right in front of a girl he hardly knew or should have cared about than where he was going. He simply let his feet carry him wherever they wished to go, making himself invisible to save himself the trouble of worrying about the people who passed him by. The farther away he traveled from her, the more dismal his mood became, just the way he had been before he had followed her into the book store. The fact that he was able to joke around, smile, and laugh like that at all suddenly came as an amazement to him. He needed to see her again.

Before he knew it, he found himself in front of his shinigami master's mansion, a place he had not expected himself to return to so readily. A part of him wanted to walk away, he could even hear whispers from the demon in his mind telling him to go and fulfill his heart's desire, but another part of him, a part newly awakened that was still vibrant with Maka's lingering energy within him, urged him to go inside. He wasn't sure what he really wanted to do, but he knew he wanted to listen to Maka's opinion. And so, he walked through the front door, where he was greeted by two very familiar faces.

"Soul-kun!!!!" Patty glomped him violently, almost knocking him into the door, but he managed to stand his ground. "Look, sis! Soul-kun is back!!!" She had her body wrapped around him so tightly that he didn't even need to hold her to keep her there. In fact, he could barely attempt to peel her off him.

"Soul?!" Liz was more surprised than her sister, but nonetheless excited by his return. "Thank god, I couldn't stop worrying!" She ran up to him and gave him a big hug too. He would have pushed her away, but not only was he bound by the younger sister, he was oddly feeling rather patient at the moment. "Where have you been? What happened out there? Please tell me you were on good behavior the whole time!"

"Get... off me!" When he finally managed to get Patty off, which took a few minutes of hard work to do, he looked to Liz to answer. "I went... to think about things. And then... I met with her again."

Liz's relieved expression changed to one of wonder. She knew exactly who he was talking about and she was curious to know what went down. "And?"

"And it was fine." He replied with a shrug. "We talked, we laughed, we had a good happy hour, and we agreed to meet tomorrow."

She blinked for a moment, trying to process what he had just said, and then her expression changed to amazement. "Wait, wait... _laughed?_ As in "Haha, that's funny"? You don't mean that for real, do you?"

"I am awed and confused to tell you that yes, it is true. She was able to remind me what it's like to actually have fun." And, without any encouragement from the sisters at all, he found it was actually very easy to just spill everything and tell them in detail what his adventure outside the mansion had been like. It just came rushing out of his mouth like it wanted to be told.

Once he'd finished, Liz met Patty's gaze, and then went running off calling Kid's name.

* * *

**Well, that was actually pretty interesting, and it was fun to write. So we learned quite a few things, such as the major incident where Maka went crazy and a theory on why it happened. It's pretty safe to say that Soul knows what he is talking about. He's done the same kind of deeds before, after all. I can't wait to show Kid's reaction! It's gonna be so fun, but I'm not sure if it will end up showing up in the next chapter or the chapter after. I guess we'll just have to see. Until next time!**


	8. Chapter 6: A Plan of Action

**Ok, yeah, I know this took a LONG time and most of you have probably moved on already, but I was having a serious case of writers block and then got sidetracked for a few things… and then the English dub of SE finally came out, started rping SE again, and then I had an awesome SE dream! But you know what really held me back this whole time? Trying to figure out how to get Wes into the mix. Yeah, I know. Pretty stupid. Apparently the muses are trying to tell me that its not time for his debut yet, so I'm just gonna move on with the story. So anyways! I'm back! And here it goes! …Again!**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

"No... no, _no_, NO!!!"

It was an agonizing mystery to him. Why couldn't the damn thing just be perfect? "I don't believe it... I'm such a failure! How is it that I deserve to even exist?!" He kept trying, and trying, and trying... and trying. But it kept being so damn stubborn that it was literally driving him insane. "Why, mother? Father... rain your wrath upon me now... please... I don't deserve to be your son or your successor..."

It was about then that she burst in with something like a mix of utter shock and delight on her face. "Lord Kid-kun! You won't believe it! Soul just...!" But she stopped as soon as she saw what he was doing, her prior emotions fading into mild annoyance. "...Are you trying to write your signature again?"

He turned to her with a face filled with excruciating depression so stained with tears that the fluid might as well have left a canyon carved into his flesh. "Liz... I need you to take that family heirloom dagger over there... and run me through with it! Right through my heart!" He gestured the motion with several stabs to his heart and finished with a twisting motion. Then, with a few very agonized sobs, as though someone were torturing him in the most heinous of ways, he proceeded to not just fall but dive –flailing and weeping pitifully, of course– straight out of his chair and onto the floor, right on his face, without bothering to get up from where he landed. He actually bounced a few times before his body finally settled on the ground, sprawled out face down pathetically, quivering with audible sobs and whimperings of how much he should die for his failures.

Liz heaved an audible half sigh, half grunt, shook her head, and made her way over to the desk that he was sitting at within his personal chambers. "Didn't we agree that, for this very reason, such jobs would be left to the servants so that you don't have to worry about it ever again? It was your mother who suggested it, in fact." She looked over the pile of papers he had been trying to sign and could not refrain from rolling her eyes in exasperation once she noticed that he had barely begun to write the first letter of his signature on the first paper. "Dear god, Kid-kun..."

His eyes widened at her mention of his mother. Somehow, the mere mention of the Lady Themis' existence made him forget all his earthly concerns. "Speaking of my mother..." And suddenly he was able to get back on his feet and turn to face Liz, the thought of the goddess who birthed him keeping his mind clear. His mother just had that effect on him, a result of her blessing of deepest maternal love and affection. "I sought her council again, and she told me something very interesting."

"About Soul, I presume? I hope it's not bad news..." She replied, trying to keep his mind off of the imperfect signature issue by leading his gaze away from the desk. She took his hand and led him out of his chambers, whispering to a servant as they passed by to clear his desk as quickly as possible before he got back.

"On the contrary, thankfully." He took notice of what she was doing, but only on a certain conscious level. He would personally rather forget the issue altogether, so he allowed her to do what she thought she had to about it. There were times where he really was very glad he had taken her and her sister under his wing. "She said that even though things may seem to go bad at first, they will turn out alright in the end, and that we can trust in that. I also asked her about the girl that Soul has met."

"Speaking of that girl –sorry to interrupt– guess who Soul met yet again to today?" She continued to lead him to the master living room. He was willingly following her now, and when she noticed that there was no longer a need to keep hold, she let go of his hand.

"Wait... Don't tell me..." The implications of what she was telling him made the impact of what Themis had told him crash into his brain like a tsunami, but it wasn't so much a shock to him as a realization. So they met for a third time? What were the odds that it really was a friendship that was meant to be?

"Seriously!" She answered him, expressing much more surprise than he. "He was actually in a good mood when he came back –of his own will, might I add!– and you'll never believe what they did together."

"...What? What did they do?" He almost couldn't process her next words. Surprisingly, he wasn't as shocked and dumbfounded with shear perturbment as he thought he would be. Instead, his heart began to beat to a far different rhythm than the one it had when he first learned of the girl who could see an invisible daemon, a rhythm mixed between amazement, intense inspiration, and the elation of realizing how true his mother's words rang yet again.

As Liz told him the story that Soul had given her when he returned, it almost electrified his brain beyond use. Soul? A long time kakodaemon? Happy? There was laughter, joking, and small talk in place of mayhem, torture, and death? He would have dismissed it as impossible if he had not spoken to his mother, the all-knowing omnipresent Themis, only a few hours earlier. Something in his divine aura told him it was definitely not impossible, and something flashed across his thoughts, a foresight clairvoyance or a dream of sorts, a small spurt like a series of short flash animations one after the other, something that he had developed recently over the last few thousand years of his life. It was a vision of Soul enjoying life for the first time in the many years since his transmutation. And who was by his side? None other than the girl that still had everyone baffled. And with this precognition, a realization of just why his mother had told him to trust that events would turn out for the best.

When they finally arrived in the audience chamber, there was Patty, sitting by the fire, actually content to do nothing but sit there quietly and without fidgeting. She was staring at a corner of the room from which drifted the sound of a haunting melody, one that struck a familiar chord in the young half shinigami's memories, and the only thing keeping him from freaking right the hell out was the beauty of it. Soul never played anything with beauty to it. His was the playing of madness and despair, a melody that was usually very gothic, dark, and unorthodox, the point of it to strike fear into the hearts of those who heard it. Anything other than that was not the daemon's forte in musical taste. The fact that he was at the grandmaster piano playing so luring a piece with such precision and steady hands, almost like it was made up on the spot from a huge surge of inspiration, made both Kid and Liz go wide-eyed with astonishment, a surge of excitement beating in their hearts.

He saw Liz turn to Patty quizzically, but the younger sister shrugged back without a peep, a euphoric smile on her face like she was ready to get up and sing along but was too mesmerized by the music to do so. Liz turned back to Kid, walking closer to him as he quietly made his way into the room and closed the doors behind him, hoping that he would not disturb Soul as he did, and he felt her lean over and whisper in his ear.

"Check this out! I thought he vowed never to play the piano again!" Though as quiet as she possibly could be, the excitement and thrill spilled over in her voice, only the sound of the music keeping her voice from being heard.

"He did..." Kid whispered back, remembering that night when he had first taken Soul in. The daemon had been through two agonizingly long nights of true hell before Kid was able to gain Themis' influence and save him, but those two nights were enough to destroy him. Almost as if by torturing other people, he had been torturing himself, and the fact that for a change it was the other way around seemed to have put him in a state of utter submissiveness. That was probably the single biggest reason of the many that the daemon actually agreed to be a housekeeper. Sometimes it seemed to Kid that Soul really wanted to be punished for the things he had done. It was that reason that he vowed to never even look at another piano again.

"So... then why is he...?" Liz looked more confused than when she misplaced her make-up. "Is it the girl? Is she changing him or something?"

"Yes, she is," he answered absent-mindedly, "It's just as mother said. She will give him what we have been struggling to provide, and things that we could never provide, and by the sound of it, I think he is doing the same for her. Maybe I _should_ go meet her, like mother suggested... Ever since they peaked into each other's minds, they've been sharing a bond in which they are connected. A daemon who was once mortal with a mental disease and a perfectly ordinary girl who was born with a gift that exists outside the Higher Order. They need each other."

A wave of sudden understanding washed over Liz and her confusion melted away almost completely. "Is that so? Sounds like forbidden inter-dimensional love to me."

He had to cover his mouth to help stifle the grunt of laughter that tried to erupt from his lungs. It took him about a minute to regain control and recover, and by then he looked at Liz with a skeptical expression. "inter-dimensional? You've been reading too many fictional romances."

"What?" She returned the look with one of exasperation and annoyance. "It may be crap, but its good crap! And from what you've told me Themis-sama has said, it definitely sounds like love."

He just smiled and shook his head. "I really don't think that's what it is, at least not yet. It's more like the relief of finding a kindred spirit."

"But you see it in their future?" She smiled back, a smile that said she suspected him of admitting that it was she who was right.

"I think it's a possibility," he set her with a look that said he did not discount her idea but he still did not think it was the case, "What I think is that there is a dark future ahead, not just for them but for the world, and that girl is meant to be the mediator. Mother said as much. Well, more like implied it, she never actually confirmed anything, but..."

She went silent for a moment at the mention of a dark future before the world, the very idea sending a shiver through her. So, too, did she know never to doubt the Lady Themis' words, but after a second of thinking about it, she turned to him with an idea setting her cornflower blue eyes aglow. "...What if they're both the mediator?"

The idea immediately struck him as preposterous, and he stared back at her with disbelief. "Mother never said anything about that."

"If I recall correctly, your mother also said not to rely on what she says all the time, Mr. Mama's Boy." She countered evenly, succeeding in wiping the know-it-all smirk off his face. "You have the power to see the flow of time too, remember? And besides, she herself said she doesn't always tell the whole story. You're one year away from the 900,000 coming of age mark, shouldn't you have all this memorized already?"

She had a very good point, a solid one that he couldn't argue with. It was his turn to go silent and think on things this time. And when he did, the image of Soul and the girl together instantly popped into his mind's thoughts. "Well... I did just get a vision a few minutes ago..."

"Of what?"

"...Of Soul being happy with life for a change, and the girl was with him."

"See? Love _is_ in their future. ...And who knows what else?" She saw the look on his face and, as she somehow always did, knew exactly what to say. "Tell you what. Soul wants to meet with this girl again tomorrow. Maybe we can convince him to let us come, too. I'd like to meet her myself. I only got to see her once and we never even exchanged a glance."

Her proposal rang a huge bell in his soul, like the idea was meant to be played out. He glanced at her once without a word, letting her know that her idea was accepted, then reluctantly decided to interrupt Soul's playing by letting his approach be heard as he moved across the room, closer to the piano.

As soon as Soul heard the footsteps from behind, his music immediately stopped with a quiet gasp of surprise and he turned around to see who it was that had discovered him. The minute he registered that it was his shinigami keeper –which took about 3 full seconds– the surprised look on his face shifted to one of horror at being caught. Instantly he put the piano back together, keyboard covered and the stool carefully put back in place from where he had moved it, and stepped about five feet away from it looking as guilty as though he'd just killed someone, all faster than Kid had time to stop him. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Oh, I see how it is," Kid smirked back at him and folded his arms, interrupting the daemon's attempt to apologize for what he seemed to think of as a crime, "You'll play for Patty but not me or Liz? I feel so unappreciated. Don't you, Liz?" He turned to look at her with a playful grin and winked at her to tell her to play along.

Liz got the message and immediately swooped in to play the game. "I know! I feel so left out and unloved, now! How could you leave us out like that?"

Never one to be able to resist, Patty came gliding over from her seat to play her part in the game, giggling in a crazed frenzy, and glomped Soul, almost taking him down for the second time that day. "Seriously! I never knew you felt that way, Soul-kun!"

"What the hell-?!" The impact of her grabbing him around the shoulders from one side and actually swinging around to his other nearly made him crash face first into the wall and its plethora of perfectly straight picture frames, but the factor of her weight being distributed to his other side saved him. "You know it's nothing like that, get off me, dammit!" His arms were pinned by her, and so he was forced to struggle just to free them in order to try and pry her off, but she was a stubborn and strong captor. Eventually, he grudgingly gave it up as futile and let her have her way.

"Didn't you tell us that you vowed never to even touch another piano again?" Kid smiled, knowing that Patty had purposely swung to his other side to avoid the disaster she would have caused otherwise. "Besides that, I never thought I'd hear such exquisite music coming from your fingers."

For a split moment, Soul actually forgot about his predicament and looked back at the piano almost longingly. "I know I just broke that vow... but after seeing Maka today... it's like she gave my inspiration back to me. I was composing that piece the whole walk back. I had to play it. I swear, I totally forgot that Patty was even here, and I just..."

"Saw the Grand Master Piano and decided to give yourself another chance?" Kid finished for him. The look that the daemon gave him told him he had hit a bull's-eye. "Have you heard from mister demon in there about this, yet?"

"That's the funny thing." Soul said. "Ever since I walked into that book store and first talked to her today, I've heard nothing from him at all since I got here. He hasn't protested once about anything, or tried to get me to do anything stupid. It's like being in Maka's presence makes him go away. It's been fucking great! I feel free for the first time in the 107 years that I've been a daemon."

The fact that Soul himself was confirming what Themis had said made Kid's heart flutter with relief and gratitude. It was funny how the fact that his mother had said it was actually not enough until it was proven true. He really was as silly as the humans. He exchanged a glance with Liz and Patty, both of whom looked just as glad as he was, but then Liz's eyes lit up and she turned a mock evil grin on Soul.

"Calling her by her first name already? Bold move there, music boy." Liz took advantage of the opportunity and poked him in the cheek to get the point of her teasing across. "Your gonna tell us what she's like, right? She's cute, I know that, but what did you learn about her while you were laughing with her?"

At first Soul vehemently refused to even dignify that with an answer, his face flushing furiously with both humiliation and agitation, but then something flashed across his eyes and his mood faded into a calmer somber one. "I did learn something, something that I hope to help her with tomorrow." His grave tone actually made Liz back off and Patty let go of him. It wasn't hard to see that something very serious and bad had happened.

"What was it?" Kid was the one who asked, and as Soul proceeded to give him the story that had been given him by the girl's co-worker friend, it wasn't just he who came up with the same theory that Soul had. It was a repulsive fate that the girl certainly never deserved. He took quick notice of the anger that danced in the daemon's crimson eyes, as though Soul felt it was his duty to protect her. "And how are you planning to help her with this? If she's able to smile and laugh like you say she can, then there is no way she even remembers what happened."

"My thoughts exactly," Soul replied, eager for them to understand where he was coming from and possibly help him out, "I want to help her confront it. It's just sitting in the back of her mind somewhere like a ticking bomb, and if it goes off and I'm not there to help her, I don't even want to think of what will happen to her considering the way things went down last time her sanity was undermined. She was lucky to just survive, and it was more of a miracle that she eventually got her friends back. Humans are so clueless and stupid..."

"Hey now," Liz narrowed her eyes at him, ever the voice of reason, "Patty and I were humans once upon a time, and so were you by the way."

"Don't forget that the girl is mortal, too!" Patty chimed in with her crazed giggling.

Soul narrowed his eyes back at the two of them, realizing that they had a point much to his annoyance. "Fine. Most. How's that?"

"Ok, what about this?" Kid interrupted before the debate could go on. "Let us come with you. You can introduce us and we can help you with your plans so that it goes over smoothly. Tell us what your exact plan of action is so that we know what to do."

His words invoked Soul's gaze, and the daemon exchanged a glance with each of them, studying their faces and noting how much they really did want to help. And with the incentive given, he relented and let them in on his idea, and they were able to come up with a strategic plan of action.

* * *

At last! Something to do other than patrolling the mansion!

Armed and ready with the biggest gun with unlimited divine ammo that could send even a low level Daemon running, she wasted no time going in by herself, no plan of stealth, no strategy, nothing. Not even waiting for her sister to catch up. She was ready to take down this dark entity. It was time to play.

"Patty, c'mon, wait up! Don't leave me here all alone! This place gives me the creeps!" She could hear her big sister whining from behind, just before she kicked the door to the underground basement open and dropped down without need of the ladder, landing in a perfect crouch effortlessly line a trained Navy Seal soldier, visually sweeping the area for targets.

"Hurry up, Liz! You're gonna miss the fun! LOOK! THERE'S ONE NOW!!! YOU'RE GOING DOWN, SNOWPISSER!!!" A suspicious shadow crossed her line of fire as though begging to play her mad game, and whoever it was looked like the kind of person who would take a piss in the snow.

"NO, PATTY, DON'T SHOOT!!!" Liz screamed from above, just then catching up, but she was too late.

The firearm went off almost immediately, the bullet that was fired activating a fantastical emblem that erupted around the mouth of the barrel like a spell net, enchanting the bullet in a divine magic meant to wipe out dark entities from existence and the very fabric of history itself with one blow. It hit the intended target silently with speed that could almost surpass light itself, but it did not strike and kill the target as it should have. Instead, as it neared the target, it erupted into another emblem that trapped the shadow where it stood, eliciting horrified screams that sounded like a man. It only did that if the target was an innocent or a victim.

"Look!" Patty exclaimed with excitement as though she had already won the first high score of this new game. "Look, sis! I caught one!"

Liz, the more careful of them, climbed down the ladder, wearing a rather sour face, most likely because she had been ignored and left in the dust. "Dammit, Patty, what did I say about going in like this? Lord Kid-kun specifically told us to collect information only, not shoot out everyone you see!"

But Patty had to disagree. "Let's interrogate him!!!" And, ignoring her sister's reprimand yet again, she sprinted toward the captured shadow, leaving Liz with the chore of catching up with her again. She had never actually meant to kill the target in the first place. She had already had a plan in mind going in.

She heard Liz heave an irritated sigh from behind and the distinct quick paced footsteps of her running after Patty.

Getting there first, Patty was able to identify the shadow as a pathetically anemic young man ghost -naked except for the heavy iron shackles on his hands and feet, as though he had been chained somewhere- who appeared to be so terrified of her that he was already crying a river of tears, matching almost perfectly with the thick trail of moist mucus oozing from his nose. His transparent ethereal body was dirtied with the grime of living in an unfit and dark environment, and he had gaping wounds that never healed in life, such as a burnt out eye, a brand mark on his forehead, bloody fingers with missing nails as though he'd tried to claw at a door to escape, and scarred marks only a whip would leave. On top of that, his ghostly form seemed to be frothing black trails of misty vapor that just reeked of something wicked and cruel, as though he were forcefully bounded and tormented by something dark that made this place its den.

Feeling a small surge of regret for attacking him, she proceeded to put on a friendly face and attempt to act like a human being. "HI!!! I'mPatty! What'syourname? Whereyoufrom? Whyareyoustillhere? IstheresomeoneIcantalk-?"

"Patty!" Liz put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her before her stream of unintelligible words could get too long. "You're scaring the crap out of the poor thing."

"Hm?" Upon realizing that her attempt only made the young man scream and cower away within his enchanted cage, whimpering and muttering a stream of words that made no sense when put together, she suddenly made the connection that she was not cut out for the job of soothing a poor mad soul as tortured as this one. "Oh… I guess I am. You handle this one, Sis." With a sheepish grin, she stepped back and let her sister take over.

Although she was usually the kind of girl you would label as a prep with jock-ish characteristics, Liz was actually much more gentle and caring then she let on. Patty watched with pride in her sister as Liz knelt before the pitiful young man very slowly so as to appear threatening, and reaching out a hand into the circle he was trapped in, her arm passing through easily as if it weren't even there, she gave him her sweetest smile, her eyes shining as a half divine aura began to glow around her body. She was using her powers of soothing and liberation, something she had developed not long after being turned into a deva. It was part of the job description when working with someone like Death the Kid.

"Its ok," she cooed to him in a soft voice as she reached out, the effects of her power giving it a comforting overtone, "Forgive my sister, she's a bit of a mad one sometimes. I promise you that we have no intention of causing you harm. I have a feeling you've been through enough already."

To him, it was as if the darkness had suddenly been filled with the light of day, something he had been deprived of for far too long. At first shielding his tear-stained eyes against her, his eyes quickly grew used to the brightness (which in reality they would not have) and he saw her in the light of an angelic being come to his rescue. Almost instantly he was filled with an overwhelming joy that sparked a new stream of tears, these ones of a different energy than before. It was the first time in centuries that he had felt such a feeling, and that alone was enough to coerce him to trust her.

"It's ok to take my hand." Liz coaxed gently, waiting for him to make the choice of his own will in his own time. "I can heal you. I can give you the freedom you've been denied. Let me be your liberator." It was a promise that she, as a deva, had the power to keep.

It didn't take very long at all. Those words elicited an instant reaction, and he took her hand without hesitation. The moment he did, there was a mental exchange in which they both shared all the information they had with each other, all in one brief second. At the same time, his wounds were healed, his madness was cured, and the heavy shackles crumbled and fell off. He was healthy and clean again. That was all it took to release him from the hold of whatever darkness had enslaved him here. Despite all the precautions the dark entity had taken to ensure that it would not lose its slave, it was no match for her divine power, even if she was not as powerful as a true god. Freed of all his fear and pain, she made sure his soul was sent safely back into the flow of energy from whence all things came: The spirit of the universe itself.

Watching made Patty wish she could be like her big sis and send souls back into the flow of the universe too. But the power she had developed separately was of a different nature, one that she was proud of all the same.

Once it was over, Liz sat there and rested, her power slightly drained, before she turned to Patty. "This was one of the early insane asylums alright. This hotel was built right over it. That kid said that there is a powerful entity here that is attracted to all the grief and the pain these ghosts are creating together. Their madness feeds her."

"Does this 'her' have a name?"

"…Arachne… ERRRRRRGH, I HATE SPIDERS!!!!"

Patty took little notice of the intense grimace her sister made at the idea of a dark spider entity. She was more focused on the fun she could have if she were allowed to hunt this Arachne. It was too bad that Kid-sama said they were not supposed to confront whoever they found. She could sense the demon spirit out there, and she wanted badly to play her favorite game: hunt and destroy.

"Come on, Patty, we got what we came for, now let's get out of here before this… thing… shows her face… Lord Kid-kun doesn't want us to confront her for now." Liz took her sister by the hand and dragged her back towards the entrance, quick paced and hoping desperately not to meet the face of the spider demon.

Another one of her giggling fits suddenly coming on, Patty found herself dragged away, sensing the presence of angered darkness following them.

"Patty, stop laughing like that its making my skin crawl." Liz said in a trembling voice, hoping to god that the dark entity was not following them.

"She's following us, Sis!" Patty laughed, confirming her sister's fear. "Better hurry up, I think she's mad!" She could already see the red eyes glaring death at the two of them.

Liz let out a terrified scream and started sprinting towards the exit as fast as she could. "NOOOOOOOOOOO NOT THE SPIDERS, NOT THE SPIDERS, NOT THE SPUDERS, NOT THE SPIDERS, NOT THE SPIDERS, NOT THE SPIDERS!!!!"

Patty just laughed harder at her sister's reaction. Before they reached the exit, she saw the face of a very beautiful and very angry woman who sent a menacing tendril after them, but they were through the exit and to safety before that tendril could even reach them. Patty's laughter increased at this. Something about running away from something that couldn't really even hurt them just made her laugh.

Liz didn't stop until they were leagues away from the hotel itself, and by then she collapsed in the street, breathing heavily and sweating like mad. "Please tell me it can't follow us here…"

Still giggling, Patty plopped to her knees beside her sister, who was laying face down on the pavement. "Nope! A demon that declares one place its territory and has a bunch of slaves attached to it normally can't leave. We're safe!"

"Thank the universe…" Liz seemed to relax, even though her body was still quaking from the experience.

"Sis, why are you so scared of spiders?"

"Because they creep the hell out of me, that's why! All small and harry with eight spindly legs and little fangs and a tiny head with a fat ass and beady little eyes… it's like their looking at me, like they WANT to crawl all over me and just… ARGH!!!"

Patty had to laugh at her sister's face. She had the same look as Kid-sama had when he was stressing over if things were perfectly straight or not, which struck her as hilarious.

"Shut up, just shut up, it's not funny!" Liz shouted indignantly at her sister in vain. But knowing that it was a lost cause, she sighed and got up. "Come on… let's report back to Lord Kid-kun."

"Kaaaaay!" Patty replied, jumping back on her feet, and together the two of them teleported back to the mansion.

* * *

**Hm… I wonder if perturbment is a word? said it was, however it keeps saying "did you mean this?" and its exactly how I spelled the word, so something tells me it's not. It was the right word just… wasn't sure how else to use it in that particular sentence… meh, I'll go back and fix that later.**

**Just for those who don't know, Arachne does mean spider in ancient greek, and it was the name of a mortal woman who was a weaver. Long story short, she was good at it and proud of her skill, and she boasted that she was better than the goddess Athena. Athena was pissed and challenged her to a contest, which Arachne lost, and Athena turned her into a spider as the penalty. And there you have it! Wiki her name if you want to know the details cause the story varies and I'm running out of room.**

**Anyways, the 900,000 year coming of age mark thing is something I** **came up with for the aging process of the gods. Gods are immortal, plus they are usually in charge of elemental and special stuff that takes years to develop, so why wouldn't it take a long time for them to develop?**

**In the actual SE universe in my imagination, Kid shares the power growth mark (sanzu lines) with his mother, who had a celtic mark that became complete by the time she reached a certain age, at which time she matured into adult hood and and gained her full powers. That age is the 1 Million mark, or in human years age 25, the age when they go from Godling to Godhood. In this story Kid is one year away from the 900,000 coming of age mark, which does not grand him his powers but completes the second line into a circle. That mark is like reaching your late teens, so in human years he'd be about 18 or 19. Time passes much faster for gods than it does for humans, so to them this is not a very long time. the retiring age for any god is anywhere above 1 Twentillion, which is where Themis is currently at right now. **

**The ages before godhood are as follows: 1 – Infant. 50 – toddler. 100 – Puperty, about age 13 for humans. 1,000 – Sweet 16 in human years. 900,000 – Coming of age, 18-19 in human years. I Million – Godhood, 25 in human years. Beyond that it slows way down and goes on line this: 1 Quintillion – Middle Age, about 40-50 in human years. 1 Decillion – Elderly Mark, 60-70 in human years. And then the retiring age as stated above. Just a pointless and fun little tidbit for you to chew on while you wait for the next chapter.**


	9. Chapter 7: Uh Ohs Are A Cruel Mistress

**YAY MY INSPIRATION IS FINALLY BACK!**

**I'm sorry! My creativity just went dead! Then I ****finished the last chapter and suddenly the creativity wouldn't stop flowing! So I got about half way through this chapter and then... my creative just cut off... again… Believe me, I wanted to keep writing, but it wouldn't come! I guess there are just times where you just can't force it and you have to leave it alone for... months at a time... yeah... but the good news is its back and I come bearing the fruits of my non-labor! I wracked my brain in the shower (~ the place where I get my best ideas) these long months trying to get my flow back. I think the cut off may have something to do with a certain personal issue, but I won't trouble you with that. In fact, enough excuses. I can already hear you all screaming, so- **

**Vash: ON TO THE NEW CHAPTER! XD**

...**Oh yeah, and he's here.**

**Vash: Hey! I'm the little voice in your head! You know, the one you gave form to? Come on, can I get some respect? Just a tiny bit?**

...

**Vash: Fine! I see how it is! *storms of***

...***waits till he's gone, then turns back to the audience* Sorry, he… kinda takes control sometimes now… And no, that's not Vash from Trigun or whatever anime you're thinking of. He's literally just some character I created by accident on IMVU one day, just because I was curious about what it was like to have the male's equivalent of an account…. They really don't give you guys anything do they? But anyways, go check out my profile page to see more about him. And don't mind him if he takes me over again. Or… if any of my other original characters do… and don't let the way I treat them fool you. I love them all to pieces. And death. And mayhem. And…**

**Anyways, like he said, on with the new chapter!**

* * *

******Chapter 7**  
_  
_

Dead silence.

The only noise was the sound of writing and paper fiddling. Otherwise it was quiet enough to hear a pen drop like a nuclear bomb. No one dared defy the nearly insane science teacher, especially one with a name resembling the Frankenstein monster. Not while there was a serious test like this one going on.

Not for Maka. Her world was filled with noise. Ghosts and Spirits were once again in her field of vision, and almost every one of them seemed to notice that she could see them, and they all had to stop by and say hi. It was hard to ignore them, especially when she was under the pressure of doing perfectly on this important test. This was a test for senior students interested in an early start in college during the Star Testing that was required only of the other lower grade students, which meant that instead of the usual two hours for the standard state testing, they had almost a good four hours of the day. It was an optional test for most, but not for Maka. If she didn't blow this test out of the water and get perfect grades throughout high school, the university she had set her hopes on would not accept her, which was why all the ethereal visitors trying to have a conversation with her were a huge distraction.

And of course they stayed clear of Stein. To most of them, he was one scary median. His amber eyes gleamed with a small lingering remnance of the insanity he had recovered from only two years before his teaching career, a career he had chosen in order to be closer to Maka, not just because they were close or she might need his guidance, but because she seemed to have the affect of suppressing his urges to be insane again. For ghosts, the idea of a powerful and insane median spelt instant kill-joy and mayhem that they were not looking for on their way to look for the entrance to the spiritual flow of the universe. That combined with his stern gaze, one that commanded respect or severe consequences would be faced, made almost every spirit or ghost keep about 10-20 feet away from him.

Maka envied him. Every supernatural thing in the entire universe that no one else could see was highly attracted to her likes flies to a garbage dump. That was how it was after the seventh day of a relapse. It was like the pressure of the whole lost spiritual community was on her shoulders. It eventually leveled out of course, but whether it would take a short time or a long one was something she couldn't predict. But this had been going on for years, and she had learned to tolerate it as best she could. They had to ignore the bell ring for third to fifth classes plus lunch in between. Luckily, Lunch was served in the room for those who decided to break to eat. Maka, however, saved lunch for after she was done.

It took her maybe two hours or more to actually finish the whole test, and another hour to look her answers thrice over and make sure she was satisfied with them before she put everything neatly together, pushed it off to the side, and put her head down with a quiet sigh, hoping to avoid the conversational ghosts by pretending to sleep.

As she did so, turning her head to the side so that she had a view of outside, she happened to spot a face amid all the other ghosts and spirits that reminded her quite a lot of Soul if he were older. However, this guy had brown eyes –not blood red– and light blonde hair instead of silvery white.

She watched him float by as she attempted to remove her nervousness of the test out of her thoughts, her mind filling with memories of her time with the daemon yesterday. She had noticed him watching her almost the whole time when they were not talking, and strangely she didn't seem to mind. Truth be told, it had actually made her feel safe, like he could protect her from things Harvar couldn't. She couldn't help but think about the comfort his presence brought to her. Anyone else who wasn't half as conscious of their own feelings as she was might've passed it off as the beginnings of romance, but she knew better.

What she felt when she thought of or looked at Soul was not love. If it were, it would be a different sort of feeling of attachment, accompanied by tripping over herself every time she was in front font of him. It had more to do with the result of touching each other's minds so intimately, something like a close mental bond that was complete when they were near each other. She would almost go even further and say that it was like they _needed each other for comfort and peace of being._

As she pondered on this, a piece of paper was suddenly set down in front of her face, and as the hand removed itself from obscuring her view, she realized it was Tsubaki. Luckily they didn't need to worry about getting in trouble with Stein, for at the beginning he had said that anyone who finished early was allowed to pass notes to each other in order to keep things quiet for anyone who was still testing. So she took the note without fear and read it.

_Kilik is still taking the test, but I finished early too. I think I did ok. How do you think you did? You looked restless since we started. Too many 'distractions'?_

Knowing that Tsubaki was trying to be supportive helped a little, but her words did not. Just thinking about it now made her even more nervous about how she did. As she wrote back, she had to ignore certain ghosts that seemed to like making conversation with her even though she was ignoring him.

_Nervous as hell, please don't ask again. I hope to whatever god is listening that my answers make their heads spin or things are looking down for me. It sucks with this early boom in 'visitors', but I made sure to thoroughly triple check and I saw no mistake on my part. Hopefully that's good news. But I'm hungry. I brought a big lunch just in case._

Getting the message, Tsubaki's smile brightened at this –totally unoffended by her best friend's bluntness– as though Maka's cooking was better than hers, then wrote down another reply.

_So am I. I brought my own lunch too. Let's go eat!_

Maka nodded happily as they got up and moved to a corner of the room where they could be alone and not a distraction to others. As usual, Maka found herself comparing her lunch to Tsubaki's, and also as usual, found that Tsubaki's was better. It wasn't really something she did out of jealousy. ...Ok, maybe it was, but she also did it to remind herself of the level that she wanted to be at. It was one of many goals she strived to improve on.

The time past by quickly as they ate and continued writing notes to each other, only half an hour left. They waited patiently for Kilik to finish, but he –like a few others in the room– didn't finish until time was completely up, and he was one of the lucky few to have finished by then. Some of the others would have to continue their test tomorrow in order to finish completely. But once they were, school was over for them and they hurried off for after school club activities together. Glad to finally be able to talk again, they started chatting about things that couldn't be said on a piece of paper, and as they left the classroom, only those who were not afraid of him stopped just to say farewell to Stein for the day.

"Hey, Albarn," Stein called after Maka as everyone else pushed and shoved to get out of the stifling room, "Come here for a moment."

Maka, standing near the entry way with Tsubaki and Kilik which was only blocked by the traffic jam of students flowing out of it for a few seconds, stopped in her path of following that flow to turn to the adult in response. "Alright, I'm coming…" She probably already knew what he wanted. The incident of her most recent near-death experience had been on the 6pm news that evening, so naturally he would want to be sure with for his own peace of mind that she was indeed alright. "I'm ok, Stein, really, you don't have to be so worried about me all the time."As she approached the desk, there was that familiar feeling of his politely probing consciousness, once again asking for permission to examine her inner well being. Allowing it without a second thought, she felt him enter and perform his technique of soothing her being over.

"You should know by now that acting tough doesn't fool me, young lady." He replied, dropping the teacher act just for a moment to take on the role of uncle that he played within her life as a good friend of her family. "Besides, with your mother gone off to see the world, you refusing to even let your father anywhere near you, and you insisting on living on your own were no one can keep an eye on you, how can I not be worried? Your parents put me in charge of your care, and you know how they are. If I mess up at all, I won't hear the end of it from Spirit, and your mother would have my head regardless of how powerful I am." As he spoke and examined her from within, he pulled her closer to him and, experienced in the ways of medical practice, he began what was his own professional physical examination, which for Maka was nothing new. As a medical and psychological student growing up before he went mad, he had been her family's personal doctor, and so whenever something happened to Maka, he was the only one she fully trusted to take care of her. No one else had been as efficient with her when it came to knowing her power and its effects.

Maka cringed and grimaced at the sound of her father's name, an old bell of that grudge she was still holding against him sounding off. "Didn't I say never to mention _that man's_ name in front of me ever again...?" She never saw the frown on Tsubaki's face behind her, but the older girl didn't say anything.

Kilik, on the other hand, did notice, and he put an understanding hand on her shoulder, reassuring her that she and Stein were not alone in worrying about more than just Maka's well being. In return, Tsubaki turned her gentle violet eyes on him in a warm smile, silently thanking him for his kindness. Ever by his side, invisible to both Tsubaki and Kilik, Thunder and Fire joined in an unusually calm dance around the girl's feet, sharing in Kilik's offer of condolence. He returned the smile, then removed his hand and turned back to Maka and Stein, still in the middle of a full examination. "Well my Karate Club meeting is starting right about..." He checked his phone for the time, probably a little more calmly than he should have. "Oh, now-ish. So I gotta run, but I'll see everyone later. And Maka, get better and stop making everyone worry about you all the time, would you?"

"Right..." Maka replied as the other two said their goodbyes to the young man before he left the room and joined the steadily thinning flow of students. She understood exactly what he meant. She was aware that trying to act as though she needed no help and hiding when she was in trouble just made everyone worry about her more, but what did they expect? She was the type of person who worked hard to do things on her own, was she supposed to pretend that wasn't who she was?

Quick in his exams but ever thorough and satisfied once he was through, Stein finished making sure Maka was alright and straightened in his chair, retreating from her mental crevices. "That's strange..." He mused calmly, a look of surprise and confusion apparent on his face as he reached for something hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk. "You seem to be less damaged inwardly than usual... almost like this episode was triggered too early to cause any real damage..."

"What does that mean?" Tsubaki asked as Maka picked her bag up again.

"I'm not sure... I never did get a full report of the true story. Mind giving me the details, Nakatsukasa? Albarn?" As he asked and Tsubaki opened her mouth to answer, the object he fished out of the door flashed clear as day in both girls' minds.

Previously curious as to what Stein had meant, Maka soon forgot all about it and her expression darkened at the sight of that cigarette pack. Her reaction instant, her hand shot out, grabbed the Camel Silver Super Lights pack, and without wasting time, dropped it all into the glass more than half full of Canada Dry Ginger Ale on the desk before duping the whole thing in the trash. The whole time, Stein watched in befuddlement, too stunned to do anything to stop her or otherwise. Tsubaki on the other hand, couldn't help snickering to herself. Maka then turned on the teacher, the fire of anger clearly burning in her green gaze. "Dammit, Stein! Didn't Mother and I tell you to quit? I thought you agreed to do it! You're so terrible! I can't believe you would just throw all your effort out the window like that! How could you break your promise to mom just like that?"

As she continued to bitch at him for it, he stared back at her in complete and utter shock at her reaction. He made no attempt to make excuses. He just let her scream at him for a good several minutes before she finally ran out of obscenities to throw at him. After all that time, it seemed that he had lost the initial shock as the realization set in that she was absolutely right to act in such a manner. He waited until she too had calmed down before he made any move to respond, in which he heaved a sigh and closed his eyes as if recalling the memory of going through a much messier fight with Maka's mother. "I'm glad you were here to catch me."

Both Maka and Tsubaki completely forgot their previous thoughts to stare at Stein as though he'd just said something that was completely unlike him.

"Don't worry, I didn't decide to start again and go out to buy a pack." He gave the girls a reassuring smile as he explained. "A friend of mine gave me that one to me as a gift. I didn't even plan on touching them... but I guess old habits really do die hard. If you two hadn't been here for this, well... I dunno what might've happened."

Maka might chopped him and dismissed it as an excuse if the words hadn't come out in such an honest tone accompanied by such a sincere expression. He was a good liar, even to people with the power to see past illusions, but Maka's power was too strong to be fooled. It wasn't just his tone or his expression. She could literally sense the straightforward and openness in him as he explained, and she just couldn't deny him then. "...Fine. I believe you. But if I ever catch you with a cigarette pack again-"

He smiled warmly at her and patted her on the head gently. "You'll go Kami-mode and torture me before you kill me, yes I know. You really do take more after your mother than after your father."

"And don't you forget it!" Maka gave him almost the same glare that her mother was famous for. She heard Tsubaki laugh gently at the two of them, clearly relieved that it had been nothing worth worrying over.

Stein then set her with his own glare, perfected by the years of insanity he had recently recovered from. "I may have deserved every word of it, but be careful where you use such foul language around me next time. I might have to wash your mouth out."

Tsubaki laughed again and finally they started to make their way out of the classroom and down the hall towards the after school club activities, making sure to bid the teacher farewell for the day. It was around then, during mid walk to the poetry club meeting, that Maka remembered what she had planned for the rest of the day. She was going to meet again with Soul, as they had promised. She didn't want to end up abandoning him because she had to go to a club meeting that wasn't all that important anyway. She could always ask one of her fellow members what the situation was later. "Oh, crap..." Turning to Tsubaki, she stopped mid-walk to the meeting room. "I can't go."

Tsubaki stopped one step ahead of her and turned to look at her curiously. "Hm? Why? What's going on that's so much more important? You never walk out on a club meeting." But then something seemed to spark a memory in her mind and her curiosity turned to a sly look. "Oh right, Harvar told us. You're going to meet with the guy who saved your life, right?"

Maka couldn't stop the sigh of irritation that slipped from her lungs. "Must he blab everything? I mean for Christ's sake! I'd like to be the one to talk about my own private life, thank you!"

Tsubaki chuckled good naturedly at her response. "He can't seem to keep a secret, can he?"

"Not if his life depended on it, that's for sure," Maka complained, rolling her eyes, "I thought being able to keep secrets was all part of the whole tough guy act." Honestly, she loved the guy like a brother, but he was like a girl when it came to gossip. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"And here we were thinking Kim and Black*Star talked a lot." Tsubaki grinned, obviously understanding of her annoyance.

Glad to be understood by someone, Maka was able to laugh at the situation too. "Seriously! But yeah, assuming Harvar told you just about everything that happened yesterday, the meeting time is 3pm so that I have enough time to get ready."

"Can I come with you?" Tsubaki asked, her face brightening as if she wanted to see Soul again too. "Unless it's a date or something, of course, in which case I can help you dress up for the occasion and stuff."

Maka paused for a moment at the thought of bringing someone with her, but it didn't strike her as a bad idea. It surely was NOT a date in any such case. And with that thought in mind, she decided it couldn't hurt to bring her best friend. It was just Tsubaki, after all. Besides that, not only was Tsubaki a girl who believed Maka could see things, but she was the second most trusted person Maka had, next to Stein. However, if this turned into one of those times were everyone she knew decided they wanted to come along too, she was going to maka chop them all and trap them all in a closet somewhere so they couldn't follow her. "Of course it's not a date! I don't think he would mind if I brought a friend, and I wouldn't mind if he brought a friend either, so... sure! Why not?"

Tsubaki looked ecstatic to be allowed to come. She didn't even need to thank Maka for the younger girl to see her gratitude. "Great! Then let's ditch this meeting and go! I've had enough of school for one day. It's time for some fun!"

"Wait... didn't you have a date with the Black Demon today?"

"I'll call him and postpone it for tonight instead. He'll be a little irritated with me but I'm sure he'll understand. Besides, I've been dying to meet this guy for about… oh, I don't know, forever? Now let's get going!"

With that, they changed direction and headed for their lockers, and with all their things sorted and ready for the next day, they then headed for Tsubaki's house first, and Maka's later.

* * *

"Will you calm down already?"

"I can't!"

They had their plan of action. They had thought it out all night long until it was perfect. They had even let Soul skip the daily 3-day manor cleaning. He could understand why the daemon would be a little confused and nervous, but by now, Kid was wondering if executing the plan as soon as the very next day was such a good idea after all. He could already see so many flaws... but for Soul to start getting edgy now was what he, Liz, and Patty had expected. Things had very suddenly changed a little, and for Soul, who was used to long grueling and humiliating work all day every day and never being able to leave or escape or else face an even worse fate, the fact that he was suddenly aloud to skip all of that because something so extraordinary had happened that even the gods would drop jaw at... well... it was enough to make anyone just a little upset.

But as Kid watched Soul gradually go from calm and collected in the limo to totally freaking out in the store, he suddenly wondered if bringing him along was such a good idea. He could have just sent Liz and Patty to prep the girl first, but this was something that Soul wanted to do, and as his friend and his caretaker, it was Kid's job to see it through and make sure the daemon didn't get in to trouble.

Liz was very skillfully working her calming magic on him, which was working. It was keeping him from exploding and making a fool of himself in public, or turning to his old ways, but he was still acting jumpy. Then again, Kid could understand this too. Soul was still so new to being in the outside world again and to being treated this way in general. He had been cooped up and treated like a servant for so long, fearing that this was his fate for eternity, but then one chance meeting had changed all that. No wonder he had the jitters now.

But that wasn't what troubled the boy god. At the moment, he couldn't help but be concerned about how well Soul could cope. As far as Kid knew, his charge was still in the red zone of a kakodaemon, former, captive, or not. Sudden changes like this could damage the fragile security of sanity he had only just begun to give him. It wasn't really his job to do so. His job was to make sure Soul didn't cause any more trouble than he already had, but it was his self-appointed mission to help him recover. So as they sat down at the coffee café of the Barnes and Noble where Soul claimed this girl Maka worked at, he was so alert he was ready to jump at even the smallest hint of trouble, however relaxed his outward mannerisms appeared.

"Soul, listen to me," Liz was telling Soul in that warm sisterly voice, "You'll do fine. Once she gets here, if being near her has the effect that you say it does, everything should go smoothly." She too was feeling very wary at this point. Her power showed through in a kind of soft blue glow, so every time a human looked their way, she either turned on the invisible emergency power or completely cut off the power flow altogether, whichever happened to be more important for the moment.

"That's not what I'm worried about..." Soul appeared to be any normally nervous human being, jumping every time he heard the door open and someone walked in who wasn't the girl he was expecting. But Kid could sense turbulence underneath the facade.

Liz gave him an affectionate smile that would smooth over the fears of any human heart. "Then what is the problem?"

"I...I hope she doesn't freak out, seeing that I've brought friends with me... I didn't account for that, I hope she doesn't get mad..." By this time she was in possession of so much of his trust that he was practically attached to her at the hip. He was even allowing her to hold his hand under the table so that her magic could stay in maximum effect. Maybe he was as against suddenly losing control at a moment's notice as Kid was.

"If she gets mad then I will calm her down," Liz reassured him, serving him another big wave of her special energy the minute all human eyes were turned away, "If she already knows what you are then I'm sure she won't object, so there's really no need to panic."

"And that's another thing!" He almost jumped to his feet. His eyes had been glued to the table a moment before, but now he was looking straight at her. "How do I explain to her what you guys are? She's never met divinities, only ghosts, spirits, and me! What would she think? I don't want to overload her or scare her away-!"

Kid fixed him with a soft glare. "Can you please not talk about this so loudly?" He shushed the daemon for the third time since they sat down. "We're within earshot of human beings who wouldn't understand. Do you want to blow our cover?"

Soul's eyes turned to Kid's as if to protest, but then immediately darted in another direction, as if realizing the boy god was right. "S... sorry..."

Kid sighed, and his golden gaze drifted toward the doorway, checking to see anyone familiar outside the building. No one was there. So he turned back to the conversation, though he wasn't really tuned in. Liz resumed keeping Soul calm and Patty, well, she wasn't being of much help with the way she just went off into her own little world again, but then that's where Kid was now. He was going over the plan in his head for the hundredth time, only now, instead of just checking for flaws, he was trying to assuage his doubts that it would work. As the conversation died down a little and Soul was at his calmest, Kid looked toward the entrance again. Sure enough, a few minutes late, there was the girl on everyone's minds, hand reaching for the door, but it seemed she was not alone. "I don't really think you should worry too much, Soul. It seems she's brought her own friend along."

"What?" Soul's eyes shot towards the door, something they had been doing every five seconds since they arrived, but this time they went wide, and Kid thought he saw something like recognition within that crimson gaze.

"Awwwww, this will butcher our plans!" Patty stopped drawing on her napkin long enough to spare a glance at the two new arrivals. "And we thought it out so carefully all night long!"

Liz groaned. "Crap, your right, Sis. I wonder who her friend is?" But then Liz seemed to understand what Soul was so shocked for. "Wait a minute... is that...?"

"Oh my, I think it is..." Now he saw it.

As the two entered the store and approached the café, Kid got a good look at her friend and realized then what Soul and Liz were seeing. The friend was the same one who was there that day when Soul had saved the girl, the one who had immediately taken her to the hospital before the two could really talk. As the girl spotted them, she seemed to hesitate, but the smile on her face only faltered once as she came closer. She gestured to her friend where to go, but the gesture seemed pointless, for the friend had already spotted them.

"Hey! I guess we're even, huh?" She said, pulling up two chairs for herself and her friend from an empty table. "This is my BFF Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, or Hana-chan as I call her. She wanted to tag along so I thought it was ok. I would say I hope you don't mind but I see you brought friends of your own."

Soul eyed Tsubaki for a moment, a memory flashing across his eyes, and Tsubaki seemed to do the same only with a big smile on her face as if she had accomplished something behind the scenes, but then he turned to the girl and began the introduction. "...Same here, actually... This is Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters, Elizabeth and Patricia. They own the place I live at."

The girl turned to each of the new faces with a smile, but she seemed to take notice of Kid's expensive suit and took on a more polite manner. "Nice to meet you. I'm Maka Albarn."

Liz took notice of this as well and of course, being the kind of person she was -being one brain with Kid- jumped in to correct the assumption. "Oh, you can skip the formalities. We may live in a giant manor, but if we can just call you Maka, then you can just call me Liz. My little sister is just Patty, and the young lord here is just Kid."

He didn't stand out inside the store, but it was only just now that he realized the usual suit was not the best choice of clothing for the occasion. He knew he should have allowed Liz to pick something more casual out for him, but anything she picked would not have been as perfectly symmetrical as something he would pick. Kid didn't suppress his own smile as he decided to adopt a more casual demeanor, which he hoped would make both girls more comfortable. He really hadn't wanted this to become a business meeting, but he wasn't really supplied with the knowledge needed to prepare for something this trivial. "I apologize for coming here looking like this. I guess I'm just not able to be normal like everyone else." Hoping the distraction would hit home, he directed a mock glare at Liz and instantly got a whack on the head for it.

"Hey! I told you to dress more appropriately, but did you listen? Nooooo, who cares about what Liz has to say!" Whether she got the message or not, she was never one to just sit there and not play along, and that was what he had counted on.

As they began a bickering contest, Patty followed the plan to lighten the stifling mood by doing her usual thing: giggling like a crazed school girl and adding in her random two bits worth. Luckily, the strategy seemed to have worked, for both Maka and Tsubaki were snickering openly at their antics. Either it worked better than Kid had planned or it was because Maka was present now, everything seemed to go much smoother when Soul turned then to address Maka, somehow with an easygoing smile.

"Sorry about this. They insisted on coming along."

"Really, it's ok," Kid heard Maka reply heartily, "I brought Tsubaki so like I said, we're even. Hey, uh... can I ask you something? It might seem a bit out of place but..."

Soul seemed to catch on to her meaning. "Is it about my friends?"

"Well... yeah."

"Let me guess: Are they human?"

She nodded.

"Hold on, one sec, before you go asking questions like that," He jabbed a finger at Tsubaki, "How much does she know?"

"Enough, I guess you could say," Tsubaki herself replied before Maka could, apparently a lot sharper than they thought she would be, "I can't see anything like Yuuki-chan can, but I believe her 100%. She told me about you before we came here, and I believe that as well, so I think I'm ready for anything you can throw at me. Well, maybe less so than Yuuki-chan, but as much as I can be, anyway." Her sweet simpler suggested that she too has eased into the moment.

"Well..." Soul paused, his gaze floating away as his mind worked, but then it returned to Maka with a curious glint, the nervousness of before suddenly back. "How would you feel if you met a... god?"

It didn't register at first, but then he was met by first a furrowed and then raised bow, questioning his logic, but before she could respond, as her thoughts snagged on the truth of his words, it was like grasping the reality of the situation exploded in her mind. Her eyes widened and she stared at him open mouthed. For a moment, nothing came out, but when words finally returned to her, all that she could say was "...What?"

Tsubaki, on the other hand, was not as much shocked as she was amazed, and she immediately inquired the same. "Wh-what?"

Soul panicked. "P-Please don't freak out, it's nothing to be worried about really." After a nervous laugh the words came spewing out at high speed without breaks, his voice wavering with every sentence. "Don't get upset it was only a hypothetical question I was just kidding! There are no gods here, I mean what was I thinking right? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that, haha..."

It wasn't long before Kid decided it was time to cut in. "Actually, it's true." Now that Soul had put forth the effort, he couldn't let the daemon back out now, so he stopped the horsing around and decided that going straight to the point was the best course of action. "Of course, I'm the only one at this table with true and pure god blood. Both Liz and Patty are Ascended Devas, which means they were human once, but then they were turned into special supernatural beings, divine spirits, who serve the god that chose them, and in this case, I was the one who chose and transcended them." He turned to Soul and gave him a warning look as if to tell him to keep it down or else they might get in trouble with human ignorance. Soul responded with a sheepish and guilty advertence of his gaze. Kid decided to continue to distract from anyone else noticing. "You might consider them like angels that way, but there is a huge difference. An Angel is a being that is both created and bonded for life to its master, but all Angels only have one master, and that is whatever supreme being out there that controls this universe and created everything including all gods is. Even so, they actually have the same amount of power as Devas do, but their power is only used for purification and protection purposes and the like, although its not uncommon for them to go rogue or fall from grace. For Devas, however, its different. A Deva cannot be created, they can only be chosen and transcended, but only if they are willing to serve. They too are bonded to their master, but not as strictly, meaning even if they were to fall from grace they will still be bonded to their master. Also, a Deva when chosen must be willing to serve before they are transcended. If the process is forced, the results could be disastrous. The common fate for such a Deva is becoming an Algea, one of the miseries, but they can also become the much rarer dark entities that float around creating pain and chaos."

Tsubaki listened with wide eyed interest to his explanation, where as Maka still wore the simple shocked expression, not that she didn't believe it, but that it was too much to take in. Tsubaki looked to Kid with -not fear or anything of the sort- but with starry eyes filled with excitement. "So gods really exist?"

Kid looked at her with a half grin, having expected the question more from her, the one who couldn't see anything, than the one who could. "Of course they do. They keep the balance of the universe and beyond in check, especially in places were the great supreme perfect whatever it is can't. Both of my parents do some important work in that field that in fact."

"Really? Who are your parents?"

Kid took a swift look around and found that although the store was a little overly crowed, it wasn't loud and everyone except them were human, and if any of them over heard it could mean trouble. "...Actually, I'm not all that comfortable with talking about that or anything else like it here." He turned to Tsubaki and Maka. "I know we all just got here, but can I suggest we go somewhere more private?"

"How about back to the mansion?" Patty suggested whilst making origami out of her napkin. "It's protected there."

Liz gave her sister a deadpan look that said if they did that it wouldn't benefit the plan they had worked on all night long. Patty returned the look with one of inquiry, which made Liz do a faceplam.

Amused, Kid smirked at them and then turned back to the human girls at the table, who both looked interested in seeing the place where a god might live. But it wasn't time yet to show off his perfectly symmetrical manor. "Not yet. First I want to see where Miss Maka lives."

"Me?" Maka looked positively confused, which told him she had no idea of just how special her power really was, which was all the more reason to find a more private place to discuss a topic this sensitive.

"Why?" Tsubaki asked, and then smiled. "What, is my place not good enough?"

He laughed at that. "Its not that, its..." He stopped and studied both of them, looking for signs of trouble that might foil the plan. "Well... I'll tell you when we get there. It's just that Soul has a question for you, something that cannot be asked in public."

Tsubaki and Maka shared a glance, and then Maka turned back to him. "Well... my place is kind of a mess but... ok."

"You get plenty of 'guests' there all the time anyways." Tsubaki added, grinning at her friend.

Maka grinned back. "True. Alright, then, to my place, messy or not! It's going to be a bit of a walk, though..."

"Who says we're walking?" Patty almost looked confused by that question, and Kid knew why. It wasn't that she never walked anywhere without a vehicle or that she was more used to using one now, but that she knew their transportation was just outside.

"No need to walk. We'll take my limo." Kid answered the questioning expression both Maka and Tsubaki were wearing.

"You have a-?"

Liz's grin was ear to ear. "Yeah! Wanna see it?" Always eager to show off the money he had. A typical gold digger, and to top that off she was a fashion queen as well. And yet, he still found her a well chosen bodyguard.

The eyes of both human girls went wide with excitement and they squealed a "Yes please!"

This told Kid neither of them had ever been in a limo before, or at least were not accustomed to that type of vehicle. He was not one to show off his money, especially because curious beings like these two could mess up his symmetry, but for a girl so special, he would make an exception. "Well then, Ladies, if you care to follow me?" And with that he led them all outside, where his limo was waiting for them.

* * *

**Vash: Well wasn't that fun and cute? **_**Just like the other 6 chapters. **_**Wasn't there supposed to be something big happening in this update?**

**Shut up! I'm working up to the fun parts! What are you doing back here anyway?**

**Vash: I saw a mistake!**

**ZOMG WHERE? *hunts for it like a grammar/spelling nazi***

**Vash: *laughs at me, then turns to the audience* Well since your author is currently working very hard to give you the best she can, let me take over for now. I'm sure you were all waiting for the plan from the last chapter to be carried out in this one, but apparently that takes too many words. This chapter? Already up to 7,562 and counting... yeah... Again, we apologize that this only got out now. Let me tell you she's been banging her head against the keyboard for months, and then she just went lazy, but now… she seems to be back, but the creativity flow is fluctuating constantly so I can't give you an exact estimate of when the next chapter will be out, but it should be out… soon? *cough* Anyways… just milk this one of all you can and we'll see what we can do for you next time. Oh, and since this is kind of a rough sketch right now, be sure to check back for the edited version later.**

***he goes to check on me to see if he can help, and I'm still editing like crazy***


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